How to Transcribe a Webex Meeting, Host or Attendee (2026)

To transcribe a Webex meeting, turn on closed captions and click Download in the Captions panel before it ends, if your site allows it. Hosts and cohosts can also start AI Assistant or a cloud recording to get a transcript afterwards. Computer recordings have no transcript. Reline, a bot-free desktop app, transcribes your next meeting live.

Options 1 and 2 below only exist on this platform. In a meeting, click Meeting Info, then Security. Outside a meeting, sign in to your Webex site and click Downloads, then Version information. If the meeting platform reads Commercial (Webex Suite), you are on it. If no platform is listed, your meetings have not moved yet. This is a rollout label and not a plan, so do not confuse it with the plan called Webex Suite on Webex’s US pricing page.

This is the one Webex route an attendee can use alone, and it needs no recording. Your Webex administrator must allow saving transcripts in meetings.

1. In the meeting, select Show closed captions. Any participant can do this. A message tells everyone that the app is recording the meeting transcript, and people who dialed in by phone hear an announcement.
2. Open the Captions panel if it is not showing: click More panels at the lower right of the meeting window, then Captions.
3. Before the meeting ends, click Download at the top of the Captions panel and choose where to save the file.

You get a text file that runs from the moment captions were turned on until you click Download. If you joined later, yours starts when you joined. So download close to the end, and do not wait for the host to end the meeting. If an admin has turned off captions for the host, or the Captions panel for the site, nobody can save a transcript. Webex also warns that this automated text may contain errors and should not be used as a legal record.

Cisco AI Assistant gives you a summary and a transcript after the meeting, without recording it. By default only the host and cohosts can start and stop it. A participant who clicks AI Assistant in the meeting controls sees a pop-up saying to ask them, and a host can change the setting so that anyone can start it. Everyone gets an audio and visual notification when it is active.

1. Click AI Assistant in the meeting controls and start the summary. If it does not start by itself, the host gets a reminder to start it.
2. Check the save setting: in the AI Assistant panel, click the settings cog and look under Content availability after the meeting. Save summary and transcript is the default. Save summary only and Don’t save summary and transcript keep no transcript.
3. After the meeting, the summary and transcript are in the host’s account in Webex App, under Meetings, then Meeting recap. If the meeting is linked to a space, the links also appear there.
4. The host or cohost can download the transcript and share it with participants.

Webex’s plan comparison lists meeting summaries on paid plans and not on Free, and its help page says to contact your administrator if you do not see the feature. If your site is not yet on the Webex Suite meeting platform, the older Webex Assistant, if your site has it, plays a similar role: hosts turn it on during the meeting, Webex says it only accurately transcribes English, and the transcript shows up in User Hub under Calendar, Completed, then Review.

A cloud recording gives you the video and a transcript together. You need to be the host or a cohost with a paid Webex account. A recording on your computer will not do: Webex leaves transcripts out of those files.

1. Before the meeting, sign in to User Hub, go to Settings, Meetings, Recording, and turn on Create recording transcripts for all my MP4 recordings. If you do not see the setting, your administrator may have made transcripts automatic for everyone or may not allow them.
2. In the meeting, open the Record control (under More if it is hidden), choose the cloud option and click Record. Stop when you are done.
3. Wait. The recording can take up to 24 hours to arrive. A transcript usually appears within twice the length of the meeting, and in rare cases takes up to 24 hours.
4. In User Hub, go to Recordings, click Meeting, select the recording and click Download in the Transcript panel. The host can also fix mistakes with the pencil icon while the recording plays.

This transcript is English only, and Webex does not produce one if it expects poor quality, for example with background noise, poor acoustics or non-English speech. On the Webex Suite meeting platform, a cloud recording the host starts can also bring an AI summary, action items and chapters along with the transcript. The host gets an email, then opens the recording in User Hub or in Webex App under Meetings, Meeting recap, and uses Download meeting content. If you do not see this, an administrator must enable it.

Lower paid plans means Starter, Plus and Business on help pages, or Webex Meet and Webex Suite on the US plan page. Webex’s pages do not agree on languages. Its help pages list 15 or 16 spoken languages, depending on the page, and 5 on a free account (English, French, German, Spanish and Italian), while the plan comparison shows fewer on the lower paid plans. The host sets the spoken language, or auto-detection does. The transcript beside a recording is English only. One help page also describes a post-meeting transcript in all spoken languages, under Calendar, then Review, covering the time when recording and Webex Assistant or captions were both on. Run a short test meeting in your language before you rely on any of these.

Webex says that if you are attending a meeting, you cannot record it yourself. You still have four routes:

• Captions and Download: Option 1 above, if your site allows it. Captions are not available for webinars in webcast view.
• Ask for AI Assistant: ask the host or cohost to start it. Clicking AI Assistant in the meeting controls only shows a pop-up telling you to ask, unless the host lets anyone start it.
• Ask for the recording afterwards: the host can share it as Viewer or Editor, and the link shows the transcript that goes with it. Webex’s page on Webex Assistant transcripts says view-only users cannot download them, and its sharing page does not cover download rights, so ask for Editor if you need the file. Automatic sharing reaches internal invitees only, and sharing from Webex App stays inside the organization, so outside guests need a share from web.webex.com or the Webex site.
• Run a desktop app on your own computer: Reline, below, does not depend on any Webex setting.

It depends on the kind of recording you have. Webex’s help pages describe no step for adding a transcript to a recording made without one, and they do not say whether the transcript setting reaches older recordings. One page says that on the Webex Suite meeting platform, if the recording settings were off, the host can still generate the summary and chapters afterwards, but it does not mention a transcript.

• Vidcast: Webex’s video messaging product can import Webex Meetings and Webinars recordings if the recording allows downloads, and lets you edit the transcript afterwards. An admin can turn importing off. Uploading an outside file is a Premium feature for Enterprise Webex Suite customers, up to 2 GB. Webex’s release notes say videos can be transcribed in English and 13 other languages, and that imported Webex meetings show speaker identification in the transcript. Its import page does not say whether a recording that had no transcript gets one, and we have not tested it.
• Microsoft Word: Transcribe, in Word for the web and in Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows for commercial accounts, has an Upload audio option for .wav, .mp4, .m4a and .mp3 files, with 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month on a Microsoft 365 subscription.
• Whisper: OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition is free under the MIT License. You install it yourself with Python and ffmpeg and run it from a command line, so it suits people who are comfortable with that.

• Webex Free: Webex says recording transcripts and cloud recording are not available on the free plan. A recording from the desktop app has no transcript, and meetings run up to 40 minutes. Help pages mention captions in 5 spoken languages on free accounts, while the plan comparison leaves captions blank, so start a test meeting and see whether your Captions panel has a Download button.
• A computer recording plus Whisper: both cost nothing, but you need to be the host, and you set up Whisper yourself.
• Reline’s Free plan: 10 hours of transcription, live, with nothing to change in Webex, whatever plan the host is on.

For your next Webex call, you can transcribe your own computer instead of the meeting. Reline’s desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux (beta) captures your microphone and the sound your computer plays, and writes a live transcript in 60+ languages with automatic language detection. Nothing joins the meeting, and you need no host role, no paid Webex plan and no admin setting. It works with the Webex app and with Webex in a browser.

1. Install the Reline desktop app and sign in. You can start on the Free plan.
2. Allow the microphone when asked, and on a Mac also allow system audio.
3. Join the Webex meeting as usual and tell people you are recording audio for notes.
4. Press Record in Reline. The live transcript starts as people talk.
5. Stop when the meeting ends. You get the transcript, an AI summary next to it, and the kept audio, with a play button on every transcript line.

Speaker names: the transcript is labeled Me vs Other (your microphone vs the meeting audio), and Reline does not read names from Webex. In a group meeting, open Who is on the other side beside the record button and choose Separate speakers (beta): Reline numbers each voice on the meeting side (an estimate), and you click a voice to name it yourself.

• Meetings that are already over: with no audio or video upload, a finished recording stays with Webex’s options or a file transcriber.
• Video: Reline keeps audio and a transcript, not a video of the meeting or the shared screen.
• Speaker names from Webex: the beta Separate speakers option only numbers voices for you to name.
• Windows sound: Reline records the whole default output device, not only Webex. Wear a headset and mute other sounds.
• Offline use: transcription, summaries and storage run in the cloud. Only the capture is local.
• Your phone: there is no mobile app.

Webex announces its own transcripts: a message and a dial-in announcement for the captions route, and an audio and visual notification for AI Assistant and for recordings with a summary. Webex also says "everyone participating needs to give their consent" before a meeting is recorded, summarized or transcribed, and admins can switch on explicit consent, which leaves anyone who declines listening only, with audio, video, sharing and chat off. Reline puts no notice in the meeting, so the notice is on you, and a transcript made this way still starts with a recording of people’s voices. 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 meeting that you are recording for notes, and stop if someone objects.

• Webex Help Center, "Download a meeting transcript without recording the meeting" (lctx8k) and "Allow participants to save a transcript in a meeting" (n57qqe7): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Show real-time translation and transcription in meetings and webinars" (nqzpeei): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Cisco AI Assistant in meetings" (nyzkuik), "AI-generated meeting summaries in recordings" (nslyqzx) and "Post-meeting email" (nl0bttab): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Create recording transcripts in meetings and webinars" (n18892z), "Turn on recording transcripts in meetings, webinars, and events" (uq5009), "Download a recording transcript for meetings and webinars" (npoakae) and "View, search, and edit Webex recording transcripts" (7l12j7): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Record a meeting or webinar" (n62735y), "Record a meeting and webinar in the cloud" (xl9d60) and "Record a meeting on your computer" (jfgavq): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Turn on or turn off Webex Assistant" (n91uf2x) and "Review and manage meeting transcripts created by Webex Assistant" (r0jptm): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Share meeting and webinar content with others" (ngg906s), "About the Webex Suite meeting platform" (m61d8eb) and "Explicit consent in meetings" (a1hui6): help.webex.com
• Webex Help Center, "Import Your Webex Meeting" (na8ors3), "Manage Vidcast in Control Hub" (c7xdou), "External Video Upload" (su8y43) and "Vidcast release notes" (nls5b52): help.webex.com
• Webex plan comparison, US and UK: pricing.webex.com
• Microsoft Support, "Transcribe your recordings": support.microsoft.com
• OpenAI, Whisper: github.com/openai/whisper