Meeting notes without a bot: record Teams and Zoom calls on your own PC

A lot of meeting note tools work by sending a bot into your call. It shows up as an extra person, records everything, and sends the audio to a server. Some people don’t mind. Others find it awkward, and some workplaces don’t allow it.

There’s another way: record the call from your own computer, turn it into text there, and get your notes without anyone new in the room.

Why skip the bot

• No extra guest. A bot in the participant list changes the feel of a call, especially with customers.
• No invite needed. Bots often need to be added to the meeting or calendar. Recording on your own computer doesn’t.
• Your audio stays with you. With on-device speech to text, the recording doesn’t go to a note-taking service’s servers.
• It works on any call app. It’s your computer’s audio, not a plug-in for one platform.

Be upfront about recording

Whatever tool you use, tell people when you’re recording. It’s good manners, and in many places it’s the law. Rules on recording consent differ by state and country, and some require everyone on the call to agree. If you’re not sure, ask before you start.

A simple “Mind if I record this so I can take better notes?” covers it.

What good meeting notes have

A raw transcript is useful, but it’s long. Good notes pull out the parts you’ll need later:

• A title you can find again.
• A short summary of what the meeting was about.
• Decisions made, written plainly.
• Action items, each with who owns it.
• The full transcript underneath, for when you need exact words.

Tips for better results

• Use a headset. Your own voice comes through cleaner, and you don’t pick up echo from your speakers.
• Say names and numbers clearly. “Let’s ship it on the 14th” beats “let’s do it next week-ish.”
• Restate decisions out loud. “So we’re going with option B.” This makes summaries far more accurate.
• Name owners. “Sam will send the quote by Friday” turns into a clean action item.
• Review within the day. Fix anything wrong while you still remember the call.

After the meeting

Notes only help if they get used. A short routine makes the difference:

1. Read the summary within the hour, while the call is fresh, and fix anything that came out wrong.
2. Move action items to wherever you track work, like a task list or a project board. Notes in a folder don’t remind anyone.
3. Send a short recap to the people on the call: the decisions and who owns what. It catches misunderstandings early.
4. File the notes where you’ll look for them, grouped by customer, project or team.

In-person meetings

Not every meeting is a call. For a sit-down meeting or a walkthrough, record on your phone and bring the audio onto your computer afterward. The same notes come out the other end.

How Updraft helps

Updraft, our free dictation app, also turns calls into notes on your own computer, with no bot in the call.

• It notices the call. When Teams or Zoom starts using your mic, Updraft asks if you want to record.
• Nothing records on its own. It reads which apps are using the mic and never listens until you click Record.
• Speech to text on your PC. The speech is turned into text on your own computer.
• You and them. Your mic and the call audio are recorded as two tracks, so the transcript knows who said what.
• Speaker labels. Optional, with an extra download. It tells the other people on the call apart after the meeting, and you can rename them.
• The notes you need. Afterward you get a full transcript plus a title, a summary, the decisions made, and action items with who owns them.
• Play any line. Every transcript line has a play button, so you can hear exactly how something was said.
• Ask anything. Ask a question about a meeting and get an answer from that meeting’s notes.
• In-person too. Record on your iPhone and send it over by scanning a QR code on the same Wi-Fi, or import any audio or video file.
• Safe for long meetings. Audio saves to disk every second. If the PC crashes, you lose a second or two, not the meeting.
• Organized. Each meeting gets its own folder with the transcript and notes. Search past notes, group them into folders, and have them land in your Obsidian vault as Markdown automatically.

Meeting files stay out of OneDrive by default. Updraft runs on Windows, and on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 13.3 or newer; a few extras are Windows-only for now.