Record Google Meet on a Mac.

No extension, no bot, any tab

Meet usually runs in a browser tab, and echo99 needs no Chrome extension and no bot in the call to record it. It listens to everything your Mac plays, so the call is captured whether Meet is the tab in front or one hidden behind other windows. You get two tracks:

• Your microphone, saved as mic.wav and labeled “Me”.
• The Meet audio, saved separately as system.wav. On-device speaker separation (diarization) labels the other voices “Them-1”, “Them-2”, …

The transcript is made on your Mac after you stop, in any of the default model’s 25 languages. The audio and transcript stay on your Mac, and the video grid and shared slides are not recorded.

How to record a Google Meet call

1. Set up echo99 once: grant microphone and system audio recording access and download the on-device models, as shown in getting started.
2. Join the call on the Mac you are recording, with its audio on. echo99 records the Mac’s default input (System Settings → Sound → Input), so pick the same microphone in Meet’s audio settings.
3. Click Record in the echo99 menu-bar panel.
4. Click Stop Recording when the call ends. The Recordings window plays the audio and shows the transcript when it’s ready.

The files land in a folder named by the start time inside ~/Documents/echo99/ (change it in Config → Storage). Try a short test call first. If one side stays silent for about 90 seconds while the other has sound, the menu-bar panel shows “Mic looks silent” or “System audio looks silent”.

With Auto-record calls turned on in the menu-bar panel, echo99 starts on its own a few seconds after your browser starts using the microphone for the call, and stops shortly after the call ends. When you only listen and nothing is using the mic, start it by hand.

Joining by phone or in Companion mode

echo99 can only record sound that passes through your Mac. If you dial in to the meeting audio from a phone, that audio never reaches the Mac. Companion mode turns off the meeting audio on your laptop, because the room’s hardware carries it, so there is nothing for echo99 to record there either. Join with full audio on the Mac you are recording.

Meet recordings and Gemini notes, compared with a local file

Meet’s own recording is a cloud feature on eligible Google Workspace plans and on Google One plans with 2 TB or more of storage, and other participants can record only when the host allows it. The file goes to the organizer’s Google Drive. Gemini’s “Take notes for me”, on eligible Workspace and Google AI plans and in a limited set of languages, writes its notes to a Google Doc in the same Drive.

echo99 gives you your own audio and transcript on your Mac, which helps when you aren’t the organizer or nobody turned on Meet’s recording. A local model can also summarize the call without sending the transcript anywhere. It adds to Meet’s recording and isn’t meant as a way around it.

Google Meet tips

• Headphones help. Through laptop speakers, your mic also catches the other side; Config → Transcription → Speaker echo removes that echo from your transcript, but headphones keep the tracks cleanest.
• Mute other tabs. A video playing in another tab ends up in system.wav along with the call.

Tell people you are recording

echo99 never joins the Meet call, so nothing like Meet's recording notice tells the others you are recording. Many jurisdictions require the other side’s consent, and your organization or the host may have rules of its own. Say it out loud at the start, before the conversation gets going.

Meet’s recording features and plan requirements change; the notes above were last reviewed October 2026. See Google’s help on recording a video meeting, “Take notes for me”, and Companion mode for current details.

Related guides: Record Zoom calls, Record Teams calls, Speaker identification, Meeting summaries, Transcribe audio and video files