How to Record Google Meet Audio Only (2026)

Google Meet has no audio-only recording: its Record button, on paid Google Workspace or Google One plans with the host's permission, saves a video to the organizer's Google Drive. To get audio only, download that video and export its sound, record your computer's audio during the call, or use Reline, which records the call audio and transcribes it with no bot.

Not with Meet itself. Google's help page on recording a meeting describes one kind of recording: a video of the active speaker and anything presented, saved in the meeting organizer's Google Drive in the Google Meet folder. The page lists no audio-only setting. You can record captions into the video, and Meet can save the meeting chat as a separate file, but the sound always comes inside a video.

Not everyone can press Record either. Google lists Business Standard and Business Plus, the Enterprise editions, Essentials, Education Plus (staff), the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Workspace Individual and Google One plans with 2 TB or more. Free personal Google accounts are not on that list, and Education Fundamentals and Education Standard cannot record meetings they organize. A Workspace admin must turn recording on, and the host must have permission: the host, a co-host, or someone in the host's organization when Host Management is off can record. It works only on a computer or an Android device, everyone is notified when it starts and stops, and it stops after 8 hours.

1. Join the meeting in your browser. Click Meeting tools at the bottom right, then Recording, then Start recording, and confirm with Start. If there is no Recording option, your plan, your admin or the host does not allow it.
2. To stop, click Meeting tools, then Recording, then Stop recording. The file is not ready at once: Google processes it, then emails the link to the organizer and to the person who started the recording.
3. Open the recording in Google Drive, from the email or the organizer's Google Meet folder, open the file's three-dot menu and download it. If you are not the owner and cannot download it, the owner has turned off downloads for viewers in the Drive sharing settings.
4. Open the downloaded video in an audio editor and export only the sound. In Audacity, the open-source audio editor, install its optional FFmpeg library first, then use File > Import > Audio and pick the video. The Audacity manual says FFmpeg imports the audio from most video files that are not DRM-protected. Then export the sound as MP3 or WAV from the File menu.

Any video editor or converter you already trust that can export audio does the same job. Be careful with online converter sites: you would be uploading other people's voices to someone else's server.

If you cannot press Record in Meet, or want no video at all, record the sound your computer plays while the call runs in your browser. Two sources matter: the system audio (the other people) and your microphone (you). Many built-in recorders take only one of them.

• Windows 10 and 11: Audacity can record a WASAPI loopback of your speakers or headset, which is the other people's sound as audio only. Your own voice is a separate input, so record both with a tool that takes two sources, such as OBS Studio.
• Mac: the Screenshot toolbar (Shift-Command-5) can include system audio only from macOS 27, and it records video. On older macOS, use OBS Studio 30 or later (macOS 13 and later), or route the sound with BlackHole into Audacity.

Reline is the tool we make, so weigh our view accordingly. Its desktop app for Mac and Windows records your microphone and the sound your computer plays, and transcribes the call live as people talk, in 60+ languages. It records audio and a transcript, never video. No bot joins the Meet call, the participant list does not change, and you need neither Meet's Record button nor a paid Workspace plan.

1. Download Reline for Mac or Windows and sign in. The Free plan includes 10 hours of transcription.
2. Allow the microphone, then system audio. On macOS 14.2 or later that is an audio-only permission; on macOS 13 to 14.1 it is the screen recording permission, often followed by a restart of Reline. Before macOS 13, a Mac records only your microphone.
3. Join the Meet call in your browser as usual.
4. Press Record in Reline. The transcript appears as people talk.
5. Stop when the call ends. You get the transcript, an AI summary and the kept audio, with a play button on every transcript line.

Know the limits. Reline transcribes live while it records: it cannot turn a Meet recording you already have into a transcript, and there is no file upload. The audio stays in the note for playback next to the transcript; if what you need is an audio file to keep or send, options 1 and 2 give you one. On the Free plan each note holds up to 1 hour of recording. Your voice and the call are labeled Me and Other; the beta Separate speakers option numbers the voices on the call side, and you name them yourself. Capture happens on your computer, but transcription, AI summaries and storage run in the cloud.

Cannot install anything? Reline also runs in Chrome: it hears your microphone, and you share the Meet tab with its audio to capture the other side.

Meet's notice only covers its own Record button. A recorder on your computer and Reline put no notice in the call, so the notice is on you. Several US states, California among them, require every party to agree before a call is recorded, and in the EU you need a lawful basis under the GDPR and should say why you record. Rules differ by country and state, so check the rules where everyone on the call is. The simple habit: say at the start of the call that you are recording for notes, and stop if someone objects.

• Google Meet Help, "Record a video meeting" (9308681): support.google.com/meet
• Google Meet Help, "Troubleshoot recording issues in meetings" (10619995): support.google.com/meet
• Audacity Manual, "Importing Audio": manual.audacityteam.org
• Audacity Support, "Installing FFmpeg": support.audacityteam.org