Want to know how to download a transcript in Microsoft Teams? This simple guide will tell you everything you need to know about making the most of your transcriptions.
If you use Microsoft Teams regularly, for internal training sessions, meetings, and even customer conversations, you probably use the “transcription” feature pretty regularly. After all, if you’ve ever tried to transcribe a full meeting by hand, you’ll know how difficult it can be.
Not only does trying to jot down every crucial statement take a lot of time and effort, pulling your attention away from your meeting, but there’s a good chance you’ll miss important details.
Fortunately, Microsoft introduced automatic transcription powered by AI in 2021, and it has been enhancing this feature ever since, offering more intuitive ways to transcribe your meetings.
But how do you access the transcripts in Microsoft Teams to share them with colleagues and stakeholders? Here’s everything you need to know.
Understanding Microsoft Teams Transcription
AI-powered transcription is a central feature within Microsoft Teams, available for all meetings and events hosted in the platform. Notably, while all Microsoft Teams plans include an option for transcription, administrators do need to enable transcription within the Meeting Policies section in Microsoft’s admin center before users can access it.
You’ll also want to ensure “allow cloud recording” is turned on, to ensure you can capture data from your meetings in the cloud. Plus, if you have the Teams Premium add-on license, you can enable live transcription translations for your global employees too.
Once transcription is enabled in Teams, using the feature is pretty simple, but there are a few things to keep in mind. First, all users accessing Teams need an approved license, you can check your options for licenses here. Previously, Microsoft also required users to access the desktop app for transcriptions, but the new Teams also supports transcription for mobile devices.
The key thing to keep in mind is that the Teams mobile app only allows you to view a transcript after the meeting ends – there’s no live transcription feature.
How to Download a Transcript in Microsoft Teams
The good news is that when you record a Microsoft Teams meeting, transcription starts automatically on the desktop app. However, you can start a “live transcription” only, by clicking on the More Actions (…) button, and selecting Record and Transcribe, followed by Start Transcription.
All participants in your meeting will be able to see the meeting is being transcribed, and users can choose to hide their identities in transcripts and meeting captions.
You can also change the language of your transcription, but it needs to match the language being spoken in the meeting. Do this by clicking on the Transcript Settings button in the Transcript pane on the right-hand side of your menu. Hover over Spoken language and choose the language you’re using, followed by Confirm.
Live translated captions are only available for people using Microsoft Teams Premium. However, if you have this add-on plan, you can click on the Transcript Settings button to change the language of your transcript. Keep in mind though, only the original transcript will be stored by Teams.
Once you’ve turned transcriptions on for your meeting, here’s how you can access them.
Download a Transcript in Microsoft Teams
Throughout the meeting, if the live transcription setting is switched on, users will be able to see the transcript in real-time throughout the meeting. They can click on More Actions then Record and Transcribe to hide or show the transcript.
At the end of the meeting, Microsoft’s AI-powered platform will make the full transcript immediately available from the meeting event on your calendar. By default, however, only co-organizers, and meeting organizers can download the transcript.
To download the transcript, you have a couple of options. You can open your Microsoft calendar, then the Teams Calendar and locate the meeting event. Click on Recording & Transcripts within the meeting event, and choose to download a .vtt or .docx file.
Alternatively, select Chat in Teams, and open the chat from the meeting you transcribed, then select Recap. In Recap, click on the dropdown arrow next to Download and choose the file type you want.
Sharing Transcripts with Other Users
If you want to make the transcript available to everyone as a meeting organizer, you’ll need to:
- Select the OneDrive tab on the left-hand side of Microsoft Teams.
- Choose My Files then
- Hover over the recording you want to edit the permissions for.
- Click on More Actions (…), then Manage Access.
- Choose the Grant Access button, and enter the names of users or groups, or the email addresses you want to share access with.
You can then click on the Edit button (the pencil icon), to adjust what users will be able to do with the transcript. For instance, you can allow users to simply view (but not make changes) to the transcript, or give them editing permissions. You can also choose to allow users to view the transcript, but prevent them from downloading the file.
Once you select Grant Access the users you select will receive a notification letting them know they can access the document.
If you want to share a transcript with mobile participants, you can do this simply by downloading the transcript to your computer, using the method outlined above. Then, in a meeting chat or email, upload the transcript to share with your participants.
Editing and Managing Microsoft Teams Transcripts
Before you download a transcript in Microsoft Teams, or share it with participants, you can also edit it as the organizer or co-organizer of the meeting. This is handy if you need to remove any sensitive information before sharing your document, or add notes.
To edit a transcript, go to the OneDrive tab on the left side of Teams, select My Files and then Recordings, and select the recording you want to edit. In the Open dropdown menu, select Open in Stream, then select Transcript.
Hover over the text you want to edit and choose the pencil icon to make changes to the transcript text. When you’re finished, select Done. Notably, editing is only available if you’re storing recordings in Microsoft Teams (with cloud storage switched on). If you’re saving recordings to SharePoint and OneDrive, you won’t be able to edit your transcripts this way.
Meeting organizers can also choose to delete transcripts and meeting recaps. If you delete a transcript using the desktop app for Teams, both copies will also be deleted automatically in OneDrive and Exchange Online. However, if you delete a transcript on Stream, only the copy saved to your OneDrive will disappear.
To delete a transcript, select Chat in Teams, and choose the meeting chat, then select Recap followed by Transcript. If you’ve created transcripts in multiple languages, select the one you want to delete from the dropdown menu, then click the trash can icon.
Remember, if you delete a transcript before using it to generate AI meeting notes, you won’t be able to create those notes later. Select the AI notes icon to create notes before you delete the transcript if you’re going to need them.
How to Download Transcripts in Microsoft Teams: Extra Tips
As mentioned above, you can adjust access to Microsoft Teams transcripts as a meeting organizer. If you have Copilot and Teams Premium subscriptions, you’ll also be able to manage transcription and recording permissions when organizing a meeting.
You can allow organizers, co-organizers, and presenters to manage transcriptions, or give permissions to no-one. Organizers and co-organizers can download transcriptions by default. People from other tenants and organizations won’t have permission to download meetings.
Notably, since Microsoft introduced the new version of Teams, a few users have found they’re suddenly unable to download transcripts on Microsoft Teams. If you encounter issues with your transcripts, here are a few troubleshooting strategies you can try:
- Check the right features are switched on: Before a meeting, make sure you’re automatically recording the conversation. Transcriptions are only available for recorded conversations. Also, make sure “transcription” has been switched on by an admin.
- Check the permissions: Double-check you’ve given the right people permission to access and download the transcript using the steps above.
- Check with Microsoft Support: If you’re using the new version of Teams, check there are no issues with transcriptions by visiting the Microsoft Support website. You might need to temporarily use “classic Teams” if you’re having issues.
- Clear your cache and cookies: Clearing your Microsoft Teams cache and your browser’s cookies can eliminate various technical issues. Here’s how you can clear your cache. Remember to keep your Teams version up-to-date too.
If you still have problems, try reaching out to Microsoft Support, or using Microsoft’s Community forum to search for answers from other users.
Easily Download Transcripts in Microsoft Teams
Learning how to download a transcript in Microsoft Teams doesn’t have to be complex. All you really need to do is make sure the right settings and permissions are in place. Following the steps above, you’ll be able to rapidly download and share transcripts from every conversation.
If you want to make the most of your transcripts, we recommend using AI tools. Solutions like Copilot can identify key action items and summarize longer conversations faster.
