Which Method Should You Use for Meeting Minutes?
Pick by where the audio is allowed to go. If it must stay on your Mac, use MetaWhisp in local mode. If you already pay for Microsoft 365, upload a recording to Word. If you want someone else to write the notes, let Otter's agent join. If your whole team meets on one platform, turn on its transcripts.
- Confidential calls (legal, HR, medical, board): MetaWhisp in local mode. The audio stays on your Mac and nothing joins the call.
- Occasional meetings, Microsoft 365 already paid for: record the call, then upload the file to Word.
- Routine internal meetings where you want a written summary: Otter.
- A team that lives in Zoom, Google Meet or Teams: the platform's own transcript.
I'm Andrew Dyuzhov, and I build MetaWhisp, one of the four options below. All four are below, because a confidential board call and a Monday stand-up need different things.
The real split between these methods is where the audio gets processed. Word's Transcribe, Otter and the Zoom, Meet and Teams transcripts all work in the vendor's cloud. Word keeps uploaded recordings in a Transcribed Files folder on OneDrive, Otter's agent joins the call and Otter writes the notes, and each platform saves the transcript in its own storage. That's convenient when your company already trusts the vendor.
MetaWhisp in local mode works the other way. It records the call on your own Mac, transcribes it there with Whisper large-v3, and keeps your side and the other side on separate tracks labeled Me and Them. Nothing joins the meeting, and the audio never leaves the Mac. The catch: it only transcribes calls it records itself. It doesn't open saved recordings, so an old file still goes to Word or a file transcriber.
Method 1: Record the Call, Then Transcribe It in Word
Word's Transcribe turns an uploaded recording into a transcript with each speaker separated as Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on. It needs a Microsoft 365 subscription. On a Mac you use it in Word for the web: Microsoft's Transcribe help page lists Word for the web and Word for Windows, not Word for Mac.
- Record the meeting. QuickTime Player works: choose File > New Audio Recording and pick a microphone. To catch the other people too, set up the routing in the section on both sides below.
- Sign in to Microsoft 365 in Edge or Chrome and open a document in Word for the web.
- Go to Home > Dictate dropdown > Transcribe, then choose Upload audio.
- Pick your file. Word accepts .wav, .mp4, .m4a and .mp3.
- Keep the Transcribe pane open while it works. Microsoft says it can take up to about the length of the audio, depending on your internet speed.
- Review the result in the pane: play sections back, rename Speaker 1 and Speaker 2, and fix wrong words.
Limits: a Microsoft 365 subscription covers 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month, and a Microsoft Copilot license covers 30,000, per the same help page. Uploaded recordings are stored in a Transcribed Files folder on OneDrive, so this is a cloud route. It's a good fit if your company already keeps its documents with Microsoft.
Pro tip: Word can only transcribe what the recording caught. Make a 30-second test recording with a colleague before an important call and play it back, so you find out that their voice is missing before the meeting, not after it.
Method 2: Let MetaWhisp Transcribe the Call on Your Mac
MetaWhisp records the call from your own Mac and, in local mode, transcribes it there too, so no bot joins and no audio leaves the machine. It keeps your microphone and the other side of the call on two tracks, so the transcript reads as Me and Them. Local mode is free and unlimited, with no account. It runs on macOS 14 or later on Apple Silicon, M1 or newer.
- Download MetaWhisp. A small starter model installs first, then Whisper large-v3 downloads once, about 3.2 GB.
- Set it up for calls with the meeting transcription guide.
- Join your Zoom, Meet or Teams call as usual. Nothing gets added to the meeting.
- Read the transcript, with your lines marked Me and the other side's marked Them.
Everyone on the other side is labelled Them: MetaWhisp doesn't tell the remote speakers apart. Your own Deepgram or Gemini API key can transcribe the call instead of Whisper; both are cloud services you sign up for yourself, so that step runs on their servers. One limit matters for minutes: MetaWhisp doesn't open saved recordings. A meeting you recorded earlier still goes to Word or to a file transcriber such as MacWhisper.
Pro, at $30 a year or $7.77 a month, adds cloud transcription with Whisper large-v3-turbo on Groq, 5,400 minutes a month. With Pro the app switches transcription to the cloud each time it starts, so audio does go to servers. Local mode is the one that keeps it on your Mac.
Does meeting audio leave your Mac with MetaWhisp? In local mode, no. After the one-time model download, Whisper large-v3 runs on your Mac's GPU and CPU through WhisperKit, the audio stays on the machine, and the app sends no telemetry or analytics. Don't take my word for it: dictate a sentence with Wi-Fi off, or watch the app's connections with Little Snitch, a network monitor that shows where your Mac connects.
That's why local mode suits calls about HR matters, legal strategy or someone's health: no vendor receives the recording. It fits a HIPAA workflow, though compliance belongs to your practice, not to any app, and the HIPAA speech-to-text guide covers the details. Pro works differently by design. Its cloud transcription sends audio to servers, and the privacy policy spells out what goes where.
Method 3: Let Otter's Meeting Agent Join the Call
Otter is the pick when you want the notes written for you. Connect Google Calendar and Otter's AI Meeting Agent joins your Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet meetings on its own, then turns each one into a summary with decisions and action items, per Otter's site.
Plans, as of September 2026 on Otter's pricing page: Basic is free, with 300 transcription minutes a month and up to 30 minutes per conversation. Pro is $16.99 per user a month, or $8.33 billed annually. Business is $30 per user a month, or $19.99 billed annually. HIPAA compliance is listed as an add-on for the Enterprise plan.
The trade-off is where the audio goes. The agent joins the call as a participant, though Otter's desktop app can record without one; either way, Otter processes the meeting audio on its servers, not on your Mac.
Pro tip: For meetings where a visible notetaker isn't welcome, such as legal consultations, HR conversations or board sessions, skip the agent. Record the call yourself and use Method 1 or Method 2. The guide to meeting transcription without a bot covers more options.
Method 4: Turn On Zoom, Meet, or Teams Transcripts
If everyone already meets on one platform, its built-in transcript is the least work. Each one saves the transcript in its own cloud, next to the meeting, and each has its own requirements:
| Platform | What you need | How to start | Where the transcript goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom | A Pro, Business, Education or Enterprise account, with cloud recording and audio transcription turned on | Start a cloud recording | A VTT file next to the cloud recording, once it's processed |
| Google Meet | A Workspace edition with Transcripts, such as Business Standard or Business Plus | Meeting tools > Transcribe > Start transcription | A Google Meet folder in the organizer's Google Drive |
| Microsoft Teams | A Teams meeting; live translated transcription needs Teams Premium | More actions > Record and transcribe > Start transcription | The meeting's recap, where organizers can download .docx or .vtt |
Sources, checked in September 2026: Zoom support, Google Meet Help and Microsoft Support. Google Workspace Business Standard costs $14 per user a month with an annual commitment, as of September 2026 on Google's pricing page. For Zoom and Teams plans, check each vendor's pricing page.
Should you use the platform's transcript or a separate tool? Built-in transcripts win on convenience. The transcript sits with the meeting record, follows your company's existing rules for that vendor, and nobody installs anything. If your organization already trusts Zoom, Google or Microsoft with the meeting itself, adding a transcript doesn't change who holds your data. The platform's settings, and your admin, decide who can start it and who can read it later.
The cost shows up when you work across platforms. A week of Zoom for sales, Teams for stand-ups and Meet for everything else leaves transcripts in three clouds with three sets of permissions. A tool on your side of the call, like Otter's agent or MetaWhisp, works across Zoom, Meet and Teams alike. The difference between those two is location: Otter processes the audio in its cloud, and MetaWhisp in local mode keeps it on your Mac.
How Do I Capture Both Sides of the Call on a Mac?
With MetaWhisp you don't have to do anything: it records your microphone and the other side of the call as two tracks. For a recording you'll upload to Word, you need to route the call audio yourself, because QuickTime Player records from one microphone input. A loopback driver such as BlackHole, an open-source virtual audio driver, lets that input carry both sides.
- Install BlackHole 2ch from its GitHub page.
- Open Audio MIDI Setup (Applications > Utilities) and create a Multi-Output Device with your speakers or headphones plus BlackHole. Apple's guide explains that a multi-output device plays audio through several devices at once. Set it as your sound output, as BlackHole's instructions say, so you still hear the call.
- Create an Aggregate Device with your microphone plus BlackHole. Apple's aggregate device guide notes it can be used for sound input.
- In QuickTime Player, choose File > New Audio Recording, open the recording options and pick the Aggregate Device as the microphone, as Apple's QuickTime guide shows.
- Record a short test with a colleague and play it back before the real meeting.
Prefer an app to a driver? Loopback from Rogue Amoeba combines several audio sources into one virtual device through its own window. It's a paid app with a limited trial; Rogue Amoeba's store has the current price. Or let the platform record: a Zoom cloud recording or a Meet transcript comes from the meeting itself, so it hears everyone.
How Accurate Is Meeting Transcription on a Mac?
In my own test (2026), MetaWhisp, SuperWhisper, Wispr Flow and MacWhisper landed close together, and Apple Dictation made several times more mistakes. Every app got the same audio, and I measured word error rate, the share of words a tool gets wrong:
| App | Word error rate |
|---|---|
| MetaWhisp | 3.7% |
| SuperWhisper | ~3.5% |
| Wispr Flow | ~3.5% |
| MacWhisper | ~3.5% |
| Apple Dictation | 11-14% |
| ~5-7% |
MetaWhisp came in at 3.7%, and SuperWhisper, Wispr Flow and MacWhisper at about 3.5%, so the gap between those four is small. Word, Otter and the meeting platforms have no numbers in this table. My test didn't cover legal or medical vocabulary. Recording quality matters for every tool: Zoom's own transcription tips ask for little background noise and a microphone near whoever is talking. Check important minutes before you send them.
What's the Cheapest Way to Transcribe Meetings?
MetaWhisp's local mode is the cheapest: free, with no time cap. Next comes a Microsoft 365 subscription you already pay for, as long as your meetings fit into 300 uploaded minutes a month. Everything else is a subscription or a per-minute fee. The prices below are as of September 2026, from each vendor's own page.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| MetaWhisp, local mode | Free | No time caps, no account; audio stays on your Mac |
| MetaWhisp Pro | $30 a year or $7.77 a month | Cloud transcription, 5,400 minutes a month; audio goes to servers |
| Word's Transcribe | Part of Microsoft 365 | 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month |
| MacWhisper | Free version; Pro is €64 once | File transcription |
| Otter Basic | Free | 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation |
| Otter Pro | $16.99 per user a month, or $8.33 billed annually | 1,200 minutes a month, 90 minutes per conversation |
| Google Workspace Business Standard | $14 per user a month, annual commitment | Meet transcripts |
| Zoom and Teams | See each vendor's pricing page | Transcripts on eligible plans |
| Rev human transcription | $1.99 per minute | Rev states 99%+ accuracy within 12 hours |
Sources: MetaWhisp pricing, Microsoft's Transcribe help page, MacWhisper, Otter's pricing page, Google's pricing page and Rev's pricing page.
Paying makes sense for specific jobs. Otter earns its fee when you want summaries and action items written for you. A platform transcript makes sense when the whole team needs the same record in the same place. Human transcription is for the rare transcript that has to be close to perfect.
Will the Other Participants Know I'm Recording?
Only if the tool tells them. Google Meet shows a Transcripts icon to everyone while transcripts run, Teams shows all participants a notification that the meeting is being transcribed, and Otter's agent appears in the call. A recording you make on your own Mac, with QuickTime or MetaWhisp, announces nothing, so saying it out loud is on you.
The law varies. US federal law allows a recording when one party to the conversation consents, under 18 U.S.C. § 2511. Several states, including California, require every party's consent, and Germany is a two-party consent country, per Wikipedia's summary of call recording laws. This isn't legal advice.
- Announce it at the start of the call and ask for a yes.
- Write it into the minutes: "Recording announced, no objections."
- With outside guests such as clients, candidates or vendors, ask before every meeting, not once for the whole relationship.
How Do I Turn a Transcript into Meeting Minutes?
Minutes aren't the transcript. They're the short record of what the meeting decided and who does what next. Read the transcript once and pull out five things:
- Basics: date, meeting title, who attended.
- Decisions: one plain line each.
- Action items: the task, the owner and the due date.
- Open questions nobody settled.
- Next meeting, if one was set.
You can do it by hand, or paste the transcript into ChatGPT or Claude and ask: "Extract the decisions, the action items with owner and due date, and the open questions from this meeting transcript. Quote the line each item comes from." Asking for the source line makes invented items easy to catch, and AI recaps can invent action items. Otter writes this kind of summary for you.
Splitting the job in two puts privacy where it counts. Transcribe on your Mac with MetaWhisp in local mode, then decide what text goes to a chatbot. The audio, the most sensitive part, never leaves the machine. Only transcript text goes out, only when you paste it, and you can cut names or numbers first. MetaWhisp's own AI features follow the same rule: with your own OpenAI or Cerebras key, only text goes to your API, never audio.
A notetaker bot works from the recording itself, so the audio reaches its servers before you get a chance to edit anything. Yes, doing the summary by hand is a little more work. For a call about attorney-client matters, board strategy or HR, that small friction buys a clean answer to the question that matters later: where did this audio go? With MetaWhisp in local mode, the answer is nowhere.
Frequently Asked Questions About Meeting Transcription
What is the best way to transcribe a meeting on Mac?
It depends on where the audio may go. For confidential calls, MetaWhisp records and transcribes on your Mac in local mode, free, with no bot in the call. If you already pay for Microsoft 365, upload a recording to Word's Transcribe. If you want notes written for you, Otter's meeting agent joins the call. If your team meets on one platform, turn on its built-in transcripts.
Can I transcribe meeting minutes for free on Mac?
Yes. MetaWhisp's local mode is free with no time caps and no account, and it transcribes the call on your Mac. Otter's Basic plan is free for 300 minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation, as of September 2026. Word's Transcribe comes with a Microsoft 365 subscription, so it only costs nothing extra if you already have one.
Can MetaWhisp transcribe a recording I already have?
No. MetaWhisp transcribes live speech, meaning dictation and the calls it records on your Mac. It does not open saved audio files. For a recording you already have, upload it to Word's Transcribe with a Microsoft 365 subscription, or use a file transcriber such as MacWhisper.
How do I record both sides of a Zoom call on Mac?
MetaWhisp does it on its own: it records your microphone as Me and the other side as Them. For a QuickTime recording, install the BlackHole loopback driver, send your sound output through a Multi-Output Device that includes BlackHole, and record from an Aggregate Device that combines your microphone and BlackHole. Or use Zoom's cloud recording, which records the meeting itself.
Is Otter.ai HIPAA-compatible for medical meetings?
As of September 2026, Otter's pricing page lists HIPAA compliance as an add-on for its Enterprise plan, so ask Otter what that covers before recording patient information. The other route is to keep audio off vendor servers: MetaWhisp in local mode never uploads it, which fits a HIPAA workflow, though compliance itself belongs to your practice.
How long does it take to transcribe a 1-hour meeting?
It depends on the tool. Microsoft says Word's Transcribe can take up to about the length of the audio, depending on your internet speed. Zoom emails you when the transcript is ready, after the cloud recording is processed. Otter transcribes live during the meeting. There's no verified timing figure for MetaWhisp, so none is given here.
How accurate is Mac meeting transcription?
In my own test (2026), with the same audio for every app, MetaWhisp had a 3.7% word error rate, SuperWhisper, Wispr Flow and MacWhisper about 3.5%, Google about 5 to 7%, and Apple Dictation 11 to 14%. My test didn't cover legal or medical vocabulary, and background noise makes every tool worse, so check important minutes before sending them.
Can I transcribe a meeting held in another language?
Yes. MetaWhisp runs Whisper large-v3, which covers 99 languages and detects the language on its own. Google Meet transcripts support English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, per Google's help page. Zoom creates transcripts in English by default, and you can pick another supported language and have the transcript made again.
Do I need permission before recording a meeting?
Often, yes. US federal law allows recording when one party consents, but several states, including California, require every party's consent, and countries such as Germany require consent from everyone on the call. Announce the recording at the start, ask for agreement, and note it in the minutes. For client or candidate calls, ask every time. This isn't legal advice.
About the Author
Andrew Dyuzhov is the founder of MetaWhisp. He's a marketer and builder with ADHD who built the app with AI coding tools on top of OpenAI's open-source Whisper. He dictates every day in Russian and English and ran the accuracy test cited above. Find him on X and GitHub.
Related reading
- Meeting Transcription Without a Bot on Mac: ways to keep a notetaker out of the call
- Transcribe an Audio File in Word on Mac: more on Method 1
- Zoom Transcription on Mac: Zoom's own options in detail
- AI Meeting Summaries That Invent Action Items: how to check a recap line by line
