Your audio never leaves your device
Meeting minutes from a recording, without uploading the audio
Transcribe your meeting in the browser, then turn the transcript into minutes with a summary and action items. The audio stays on your device the whole time.
Takes a little extra time, and your audio still never leaves your device. Labels go by how voices sound, so treat them as a best effort: one person can be split across two or three labels, similar voices can be merged, and someone joining partway through may be folded into a speaker already talking. Giving a number usually helps. Check them before relying on them.
Specifying this number improves accuracy. Count people who really take part, whenever they join. Someone who only says a word or two is better left out.
Timestamps each word instead of each phrase, so short interjections like "Yeah" go to the right person. On a busy four-person recording this corrected about 1 word in 5; it changes little when people talk in long turns. Adds roughly 40% to the time on a computer, and almost nothing on a phone.
Phone audio loses the high frequencies that separate consonants, so they are put back before transcribing. Only phone-quality recordings are treated, and you are told when it happens. Also even out volume is for one case: someone far from the microphone and much quieter throughout. It cost accuracy on other recordings, so use it only if a quiet person came out badly.
Worth filling in. The speech model knows ordinary English, not your subject, so a word it has never heard becomes whatever sounds closest, and it usually gets that word wrong every single time it comes up. A sentence is enough, and the names and jargon in it are picked out and watched for. It cannot guess a word you do not mention, so name the people and the terms that matter.
Free, no signup. The first time you use it, it takes a minute or two to set up. After that setup is quick. Works with MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC and AMR, and long recordings are handled in parts.
Minutes, notes, and transcripts are three different documents
People use these words interchangeably and then wonder why the output is wrong for the purpose. Separating them makes the whole task easier:
- A transcript is everything that was said, verbatim, with speakers. It is evidence and raw material. It is not meant to be read by anyone who was not there.
- Notes are an informal working summary for the team, optimized for whoever missed the meeting. Their only job is to be useful next week.
- Minutesare the official record of a formal meeting. They are typically approved at the following meeting, become the organization's account of what was decided, and can carry legal or governance weight for boards, nonprofits, committees, and associations.
This page is mostly about the third. If what you actually want is the second, our guide to better meeting notes is the more useful read.
What belongs in minutes
Formal minutes are short by design. The convention across most governance frameworks is that minutes record what was decided rather than what was discussed:
- Basics. Organization, type of meeting, date, time it started and ended, and location or platform.
- Attendance. Who was present, who sent apologies, who arrived late or left early, and whether quorum was met.
- Approval of prior minutes. Confirmation that the last set was accepted, with any corrections.
- Motions and decisions. The exact wording of each motion, who moved and seconded it where that applies, and the outcome. Record the result of the vote, and the counts if your rules require them.
- Reports received. Noted briefly, with the report itself attached rather than summarized at length.
- Action items. Owner, task, and deadline.
- Next meeting and the time of adjournment.
What does not belong
- The debate. Minutes record the decision, not who argued which way. Naming dissenters, unless a member formally asks for their dissent to be recorded, creates a permanent record of a position someone took in a discussion.
- Opinion and characterization."After a heated exchange" is the minute-taker's judgment appearing in an official record.
- Verbatim quotes, other than the exact wording of motions.
- Anything that did not happen at the meeting, including corridor conversations and things agreed by email afterwards.
This is exactly why a transcript is a starting point rather than a shortcut. Pasting a transcript-shaped document into the minutes book turns every unguarded remark into part of the permanent record.
Step one: transcribe on your device
- Drop the meeting recording into the tool above.
- Turn on speaker separation so each person's turns are labeled.
- Transcribe, then rename the speakers to real names while you still remember the voices.
- Correct names, figures, and the wording of any motion in the in-page editor. Motion wording is the one place accuracy is non-negotiable.
Long meetings are transcribed in parts automatically. The whole file is still decoded into memory first, so for anything past about an hour, split the recording into parts named in order and select them together. They join into one transcript, which matters for a two hour board meeting.
Step two: draft the minutes
Click Copy notes prompt. That copies your transcript along with instructions asking for a short summary, the key discussion points, and action items with owners, and telling the assistant to use only the transcript and invent nothing. Paste it into an AI chat you already use, and you get a structured draft back.
Then edit it into actual minutes, because a summary is not minutes. Cut the discussion down to decisions, add attendance and quorum, put motions into their formal wording, and remove anything characterizing how people behaved. The draft saves you the transcription and structuring work, which is most of the effort. The judgment about what belongs in the record is yours and should stay that way.
Getting minutes approved
The step that most often goes wrong is not writing them, it is the loop afterwards:
- Draft within a day or two, while corrections are still cheap and memories are intact.
- Mark the document clearly as a draft until it is approved. An unmarked draft circulating as if it were the record causes real confusion.
- Circulate to attendees for factual corrections, not for re-litigating the decision.
- Approve at the next meeting, recording any amendments in that meeting's minutes rather than silently editing the old file.
- File the approved version where your governing documents require, and handle the recording according to your retention policy.
Why teams use this
Board and committee meetings routinely cover personnel, finances, legal advice, and matters that are not public yet. Uploading that recording to a transcription vendor puts all of it on infrastructure your organization did not vet. Transcribing in the browser avoids that entirely, costs nothing, and produces a consistent format every time. For the mechanics of what runs where, see how it works.
Last reviewed: August 2026
Frequently asked questions
- How do I get minutes, not just a transcript?
- First transcribe the recording here. Then use the Copy notes prompt button, which puts your transcript plus clear instructions on your clipboard. Paste that into any AI chat and you get a summary, key points, and action items back. Only the text is sent, and only if you choose to paste it.
- Are minutes the same as a transcript?
- No, and confusing the two is the most common mistake. A transcript records everything that was said. Minutes are a short official record of what the meeting decided. A transcript is the raw material you write minutes from, not a substitute for them.
- Should we keep the recording after the minutes are approved?
- Usually not, and many organizations have a policy requiring its destruction once minutes are approved, precisely because a recording is discoverable in ways minutes are not. Check your own governing documents rather than defaulting to keeping everything.