View live transcription in Microsoft Teams meetings
During any Teams meeting, you can start a live transcription of the proceedings. The text appears alongside the meeting video or audio in real time, including the speaker's name (unless they chose to hide it) and a time stamp.
In this article
Change the transcript language
Hide or show live transcription
Overview
Live transcription can make your meeting more productive and inclusive for participants who are deaf or hard-of-hearing or have different levels of language proficiency. Participants in noisy places will also appreciate the visual aid.
People can choose to not be identified in meeting transcripts. For details, see hide your identity in meeting captions and transcripts.
Limitations
Live transcription is available:
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On the desktop version of Teams.
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For customers with the following licenses: Office 365 E1, Office 365 A1, Office 365/Microsoft 365 A3, Office 365/Microsoft 365 A5, Microsoft 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 F1, Office 365/Microsoft 365 F3, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Copilot
Important: If your organization is using OneDrive for Business and SharePoint for meeting recordings, the IT admin should turn on Allow transcription in the Teams meeting policy and encourage users to start transcription in every meeting. This will make captions and transcriptions available in post-meeting recordings.
Note: If you don't see the transcription options, your IT admin hasn't enabled this feature for you.
After the meeting, the saved transcript is available for reference and download in Teams on the desktop and web.
Note: People who call in to a meeting using the phone number provided in the meeting details won't be able to view the transcript.
Start live transcription
-
Select More actions
in the meeting controls. -
Choose Record and transcribe
, and select Start transcription .
Tip: If you also want to record the meeting, select More options
All participants see a notification that the meeting is being transcribed. The transcript appears on the right side of your screen.
Change the transcript language
The transcript language must be the same as the language being spoken in the meeting. To change the language setting:
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You'll see the live transcription on the right side of your screen. At the top right of the transcript window, select Transcript settings
. -
Hover over Spoken language. and choose another language everyone in the meeting is speaking.
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Select Confirm. The transcript will now display in this language.
Important: When you change the spoken language setting, it affects everyone. The transcript language (as well as that of the captions) will change for all meeting participants.
You have up to 41 different language options for transcription:
English (US), English (Canada), English (India), English (UK), English (Australia), English (New Zealand), Arabic (Arab Emirates), Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Chinese (Simplified China), Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan), Czech (Czechia), Danish (Denmark), Dutch (Belgium), Dutch (Netherlands), French (Canada), French (France), Finnish (Finland), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Hebrew (Israel), Hindi (India), Hungarian (Hungary), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Norwegian (Norway), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian (Romania), Russian (Russia), Slovak (Slovakia), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish (Sweden), Thai (Thailand), Turkish (Turkey), Ukrainian (Ukraine), Vietnamese (Vietnam), Welsh (United Kingdom)
Hide or show live transcription
-
Select More actions
in the meeting controls. -
Select Record and transcribe
, and choose Hide transcript or Transcript .
Note: Obscenities are obscured by asterisks.
Live translated transcription
Note: Live translated transcription is available as part of Teams Premium, an add-on license that provides additional features to make Teams meetings more personalized, intelligent, and secure. To get access to Teams Premium, contact your IT admin.
Understand each other better during a meeting by translating the meeting transcript into the language you’re most comfortable with.
To translate a transcript during a meeting:
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Join a meeting in Teams.
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In the transcript pane, select Transcript settings
. -
Hover over Transcript language and select the language you want the transcript translated into.
To view the original and translated transcripts side-by-side, turn on the Show both original and translation toggle.
Notes:
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Past translated transcripts aren’t stored. Only the original transcript is stored. If participants join the meeting late, they’ll only be able to view the translated transcript from the point they joined the meeting.
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Profanity filtering isn't supported for transcripts.
Stop and restart live transcription
The meeting organizer, co-organizers, and presenters can stop and restart transcription during the meeting. (For info about organizer and presenter roles, see Roles in a Teams meeting.)
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Go to the meeting controls and select More actions
. -
Select Record and transcribe
and choose Stop transcription or Stop recording (if a recording is in progress).
The transcription stops automatically when all participants leave the meeting.
Download the transcript
When the meeting is over, the transcript is immediately available in the meeting event on the calendar. By default, meeting organizers and co-organizers can download it as a .docx or .vtt file.
You may also be able to give others permission to download a transcript, depending on policies set by your IT admin.
To download a transcript:
-
Select Chat
on the left in Teams. -
Open the meeting chat and select the transcript.
-
On the Recap tab, above the transcript, select the down arrow next to Download
and choose the file type you want.
Tip: After the meeting, along with the transcript, any other available meeting-related items (attached docs, meeting notes, the recording) will also be available from the Details tab when you open the meeting event.
Delete the transcript
The meeting organizer and co-organizers can delete the transcript.
To delete a transcript:
-
Open the meeting and go to Recap.
-
Select Delete
above the transcript.
To learn more about deleting a transcript, see Edit or delete a meeting transcript in Microsoft Teams.
Who can start, stop, view, and download a transcript?
Type of meeting participant |
Start and stop transcription |
View real-time transcription |
View transcript after meeting |
Download transcript after meeting |
---|---|---|---|---|
Organizer |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Person from same organization |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No, but organizers can configure who can download on Stream. |
Person from another tenant |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
Anonymous |
No |
No |
No |
No |
With Teams Premium and Copilot, meeting organizers can easily manage who can record and transcribe when scheduling Teams meetings. There are three options for who can record and transcribe a meeting: organizers and co-organizers, organizers, co-organizers and presenters, or no one.
Notes:
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Teams live transcripts for meetings with recording and/or transcription are stored in the meeting organizer's OneDrive for Business. The transcript can be accessed through the meeting chat and Recap tab in Teams until a meeting organizer deletes the transcript.
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If you are using Cloud Video Interop (CVI) to join Teams meetings, please contact your CVI provider to ensure that your CVI participants get the transcription notification when transcription starts.
Important: Microsoft reserves the right to restrict transcription and translation services, with reasonable notice, in order to limit excessive use and/or fraud, and to maintain service performance. These services include live captions, subtitles, and transcription functionality available across Office 365 products like Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Stream, and others.
For IT admins
During a Teams meeting, you can start a live transcription of the proceedings. The text appears alongside the meeting video or audio in real time, including the speaker's name (unless they chose to hide it) and a time stamp.
Start/stop transcription
-
During your meeting, tap More actions
> Start transcription to start the transcription. -
To stop the transcription, tap More actions
> Stop transcription . The transcription will automatically save in the meeting chat.
Access the transcript
After your meeting ends, you can view its transcript in your meeting's chat history. Access the transcript by tapping the link in your team's Meeting ended chat message, or by tapping More > Files.
Note: The Teams mobile app currently supports viewing a transcript after a meeting ends. Live transcription is only available on Teams for desktop.