Transcribe a Microsoft Teams meeting in under 5 minutes
Drop your Teams recording, get a speaker-labeled transcript. Works whether your org pays for Teams Premium or not — no admin permissions, no Stream/SharePoint configuration. $2 per hour, $2 minimum per meeting.
No admin required
You don't need Teams Premium, you don't need a Workspace admin to flip a switch. If you can download the meeting recording, we can transcribe it.
Speaker labels for every voice
Multi-attendee Teams meetings produce overlapping speech and unfamiliar voices. Our diarisation labels each segment automatically — useful for action-item extraction.
$2/hour, no per-seat fees
Teams Premium charges $10/user/month for built-in transcription. We charge $2/hour for the recordings. A typical 30-min standup = $2; a 2-hour all-hands = $4.
Works on confidential meetings
Audio is processed in EU data centres and deleted from our servers 90 days after your last sign-in. We don't share recordings with third parties beyond OpenAI for the transcription pass (zero-retention agreement).
From Teams recording to transcript in 3 steps
Download from OneDrive or SharePoint
Teams recordings are saved to OneDrive (1:1 and group calls) or SharePoint (channel meetings). Open the meeting chat → Recording → "..." → Download. You get an .mp4.
Upload to TranscribeCat
Drop the .mp4 into the upload area. We extract the audio track automatically — no need to convert to MP3 first. 1-hour meetings finish in 5–8 minutes.
Get a speaker-labeled transcript
Copy the text, export as SRT (for captions), or download as Word. The recording plays back alongside the transcript so you can verify any line.
Where Teams recordings actually live (and how to find them)
Microsoft moved Teams recordings out of Stream a few years ago and the new location confuses people. As of 2026, here's where to find your recording depending on the meeting type:
- Scheduled meetings, 1:1 calls, ad-hoc group calls: The recording lands in the OneDrive of the user who started the recording. Path:
OneDrive → My Files → Recordings. The file is named like "Meeting in chat-name-YYYY-MM-DD.mp4". - Channel meetings (within a Team): The recording goes to the SharePoint document library of the underlying Team. Open the Team in Teams, click the channel, click Files at the top, find the Recordings folder.
- From the meeting chat itself: The fastest path. Open the meeting chat (Teams left rail → Chat → the meeting), find the recording at the top of the conversation, click the ⋯ menu, click Open in OneDrive or Download.
If you can't find the recording at all: you may not have been the recorder, or the recording may have been auto-deleted by your org's retention policy (Microsoft defaults to 60 days). Ask the meeting organiser; they'll have access via their OneDrive even if you don't.
If you have only the Stream view link, not the file: click ⋯ on the player → Download original video. Older recordings may need an admin to open Stream-to-OneDrive migration first.
Free Teams vs paid Teams (and Teams Premium transcription)
Free Teams (Microsoft 365 Personal/Family or Teams Free): meeting recording is supported but the files don't go to OneDrive in the same way — you typically download the recording at the end of the meeting via the in-call menu. Save it locally, upload to TranscribeCat. Built-in transcription is not available on free Teams; we're your transcription path.
Paid Teams without Premium (Microsoft 365 Business Standard, E3, etc.): you get recording but not built-in transcription. Same workflow as above.
Teams Premium ($10/user/month add-on): includes built-in transcription with speaker labels, plus AI-generated meeting notes. If you have it and only need English transcripts of routine meetings, Premium is convenient. Where TranscribeCat wins: 90+ languages, no per-seat fees (so you pay $2/hour even if 50 people attended), exports to standard SRT/Word, and you can transcribe historical recordings that were made before you turned Premium on.
What Teams meeting transcription costs
$2 per hour of meeting audio. Real examples:
$2
Daily 30-min standup
$4
Weekly 2-hour planning
$8
All-day 4-hour offsite
Teams Premium charges $10/user/month — for a 10-person team that's $1,200/year. At $2/hour, you'd cover 600 hours of meetings before that gets cheaper.
Frequently asked questions
Where does Teams save my meeting recording?+
For 1:1 and ad-hoc group meetings, recordings land in the OneDrive of whoever pressed Record (My Files → Recordings folder). For channel meetings inside a Team, recordings go to the SharePoint document library of that Team (Channel → Files → Recordings). The fastest path is via the meeting chat itself: open the chat, find the recording at the top, click Download.
Do I need Teams Premium to transcribe meetings?+
No. Teams Premium includes built-in transcription, but it costs $10/user/month and is English-first. With TranscribeCat, you record the meeting (free on any Teams plan), download the file, and transcribe at $2/hour. No per-user licensing.
Can I transcribe Teams meetings on the free plan?+
Yes. Free Teams supports recording — at the end of the meeting, save the recording file locally, then upload to TranscribeCat. Transcription works the same as paid Teams.
How long does a Teams recording take to transcribe?+
Most 30–60 minute meetings finish in 4–8 minutes (we extract the audio from the .mp4, run diarisation, and produce the transcript). A 2-hour board meeting typically takes 8–15 minutes.
My Teams recording is bigger than 500 MB — what now?+
Long meetings can produce large MP4s. Two options: (1) compress with Handbrake to under 500 MB (works for most 1080p meetings), or (2) extract audio-only with QuickTime/Audacity (File → Export → Audio Only) — audio-only is ~5–10% the size of the video.
What about meetings with many participants?+
Speaker diarisation works regardless of participant count. The transcript will label distinct voices as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, etc., which you can rename in the editor afterwards. Cross-talk in large calls produces some accuracy reduction — that's a property of the audio, not our pipeline.
Is this compliant for confidential meetings?+
TranscribeCat processes audio in EU data centres and deletes recordings 90 days after your last sign-in. We don't train models on your audio. OpenAI (our transcription subprocessor) operates under a zero-retention agreement. Full subprocessor disclosure at /trust. For HIPAA, SOX, or other regulated data, check whether your org's policy permits non-BAA transcription vendors first.
Related meeting and platform resources
Drop your Teams recording
Speaker-labeled transcripts in minutes. $2 per hour. Works on every Teams plan.
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