To transcribe a Teams meeting to text, start transcription from More actions (it turns on by itself when you record) and confirm the spoken language. When it ends, the organiser downloads it as .docx or .vtt from the Recap tab in the chat. If your organisation does not allow it, transcribe the MP4 of the recording on your computer.
The three ways to turn a Teams meeting into text
Teams offers its own transcription, an AI recap with some licences and an MP4 recording you can transcribe separately. This is how they compare, according to Microsoft's official help checked on 22 October 2026:
| Teams transcription | Intelligent recap | MP4 recording transcribed on your computer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | The text of the meeting with the speaker's name and the timestamp | Notes and follow-up tasks generated with AI from the transcript | The text produced by the program you choose |
| What you need | Your organisation's policy has to allow transcription | A Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot licence, and the meeting transcribed | The recording file (by default the organiser downloads it) |
| Language | The spoken language confirmed at the start; it includes Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico) | Spanish is among the supported languages | The program's |
| Where it is kept | In the organiser's OneDrive, accessible from the meeting chat | In the meeting recap, inside Teams | On your computer, if the program transcribes locally |
| Format | .docx or .vtt | Text inside Teams | Whatever the program gives (Word, subtitles) |
If you are the organiser, your organisation has transcription turned on and the text can stay in its cloud, the Teams one is the shortest route and you don't need another program. The MP4 recording is useful when transcription is not available to you or when you want to work on the text outside Teams.
How to start transcription in a Teams meeting
Transcription is started during the meeting, from the meeting controls in Teams. These are the steps in Microsoft's help:
- In the meeting controls, select More actions.
- Choose Transcribe.
- Confirm the language everyone in the meeting is speaking.
- Click Confirm.
If instead of transcribing you choose Record in the same menu, transcription starts at the same time as the recording. All participants see a notice that the meeting is being transcribed, and each of them can hide their name in the captions and in the transcript. To stop it, go back to More actions and stop the transcription or the recording: either of the two cuts it off. It also stops by itself when everyone leaves the meeting.
Who can start it, view it and download it
What each participant can do with the transcript depends on their relationship with the organisation that calls the meeting:
| Participant | Start and stop | View live | View after the meeting | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organiser | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Person from the same organisation | Yes | Yes | Yes | No, unless the organiser allows it |
| Person from another organisation | No | Yes | No | No |
| Anonymous participant | No | No | No | No |
Anyone who joins the meeting by phone call does not see the transcript.
How to set Teams transcription to Spanish
Teams transcribes in the spoken language of the meeting, which has to match the one everyone is using. Microsoft's list includes 57 language variants, among them Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico); choose the one used in the meeting before confirming.
If people speak in a language other than the one set, Teams detects it and asks the organiser, the co-organisers or whoever started the transcription to update it: with Settings you change it by hand and with Yes, change it it switches to the detected language. To change it by hand (the organiser, the co-organisers and whoever started the transcription can do it at any time):
- Select More actions in the meeting controls.
- Open the arrow next to the transcription button and choose Show transcript.
- In the transcript panel, open the language settings.
- Under Spoken language in this meeting, choose the language being spoken.
- Click Update.
The change affects the transcript and the captions of all participants. If languages are mixed in the meeting, live translated transcription lets you read it in another language, but it is part of Teams Premium and only the original transcript is saved, not the translated one.
Where the Teams transcript is saved and how to download it
The Teams transcript stays in the organiser's OneDrive and is viewed from the meeting chat. It is available as soon as the meeting ends and stays there until the organiser deletes it. To download it:
- In Teams, open Chat and go into the chat of the meeting that has ended.
- Select Recap and then Transcript.
- Open the arrow next to the download icon and choose the format: .docx or .vtt.
By default the organiser and the co-organisers can download it; the rest of the organisation can only view it, unless the organiser or the administrator's policies give more people permission. The .docx file opens directly in Word. The .vtt is a subtitle format with timestamps, the same one Zoom delivers; we explain it in how to transcribe a Zoom meeting to text.
If the meeting was recorded, the recording and the transcript are saved together. If it was recorded but transcription was turned off, the recording has no transcript file next to it, and when you play it in Stream you cannot turn on captions.
What licence you need to transcribe in Teams
In Teams for work or school, transcription depends on a policy the administrator controls. That option, called Transcription, is on by default in new meeting policies, and both the organiser and whoever starts the transcription must have it. For recording, Microsoft's help lists the licences that allow it: Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3, E5, F3, A1, A3 and A5, and M365 Business, Business Premium and Business Essentials. Both the organiser and whoever records need them, and the administrator has to enable recording.
With the free Teams account
The help for Teams (free) (the version for personal use) describes live captions, which only the person who turns them on can see, but not a transcript that can be downloaded. Recording requires being a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium subscriber. That recording stays in the cloud for 30 days and then expires, so it is best to download it beforehand if you want to transcribe it.
What Teams Premium and Copilot add
Teams Premium is an add-on licence, and intelligent recap is available with it or with a Microsoft Copilot licence. Its AI recap generates notes and follow-up tasks from the transcript, as long as the meeting was transcribed in a supported language (Spanish is one) and lasted at least five minutes. How to turn those notes into minutes, with a template, we explain in meeting minutes with AI. Microsoft warns that this content may be inaccurate or incomplete, so it does not replace reading the transcript. With these licences, the organiser can also decide when scheduling the meeting who can record and transcribe: organisers and co-organisers, presenters as well, or nobody.
How to transcribe the Teams MP4 recording on your computer
The recording of a Teams meeting is an .mp4 file that can be downloaded and transcribed with another program. If the meeting is not a channel meeting, it is saved in the Recordings folder of the organiser's OneDrive; if it is a channel meeting, on the channel's SharePoint site, in its files tab. It appears in the meeting chat or, for a channel meeting, in the channel conversation. To download it:
- In the meeting chat or in the channel, open the Shared tab.
- Find the recording and select it.
- Choose More options and then Download.
Microsoft's help pages do not fully agree on who can do this: one says only the organiser and another that, by default, the organiser and the co-organisers. If you are neither, ask whoever organised the meeting for the file. Bear in mind too that recordings expire after the period the administrator sets; when they expire they go to the recycle bin, and their owner has 90 days to recover them.
With the MP4 on your computer you have three options:
- Word's Transcribe feature, which accepts .mp4 files and counts them as uploaded audio. According to Microsoft's help, it is only in Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows with a work account, with up to 300 minutes a month. The steps are in how to transcribe audio in Word.
- An online transcription service, to which you upload the file. We compare the most used ones, and where the recording ends up with each, in transcribing audio to text in a law firm.
- An app that transcribes on your computer, without uploading the file to any server.
The Hearings tab in ablalo is of this third kind: it transcribes on your own computer the MP4 of a meeting in Spanish that you download from Teams, without uploading the file. It separates the speakers and lets you name them, syncs the text with the video, saves notes (important, contradiction, favourable, review) with the exact second, searches and corrects across the whole transcript and exports to Word the transcript with timestamps or only the notes. On Windows and on Mac (macOS 14.2 or later) it also records meetings: the microphone and the computer's sound.
Why you can't transcribe a Teams meeting
You can't transcribe a Teams meeting when your account, your role in the meeting or a policy prevents it. The causes listed in Microsoft's help:
- The policy prevents it. The administrator can turn transcription off, and it is enough for it to be off for the organiser or for whoever tries to start it.
- You are not from the organisation. People from another organisation and anonymous participants cannot start it.
- The organiser has restricted it. With Teams Premium or Copilot, they can keep recording and transcription for organisers and co-organisers, or for nobody.
- Copilot is turned off in the meeting. When the organiser turns it off, recording and transcription are turned off too.
- You are on your phone. While the meeting is going on, the live transcript can only be seen in Teams for desktop; in the phone app it can be read once the meeting ends.
Even when it works, an automatic transcript fails above all with voices that talk over each other, proper names and technical terms. Always check the text with the recording beside it before quoting a sentence from the meeting.
In short
Teams transcribes a meeting if the organisation's policy allows it: you start it from More actions, with Transcribe or when recording, and you have to confirm the spoken language, with Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico) on the list. When it ends, the transcript stays in the organiser's OneDrive and is downloaded as .docx or .vtt from Recap, by default only by the organiser and the co-organisers. If you can't use it, the Teams recording is an MP4 that can be transcribed with Word, with an online service or with an app that works on your computer.
Sources: Microsoft, Start, stop, and download live transcripts in Microsoft Teams meetings, Start, stop, and find meeting recordings in Microsoft Teams, Play, share, and download meeting recordings in Microsoft Teams, Recap in Microsoft Teams, Manage meeting and call recordings in Microsoft Teams (free), Live captions in Microsoft Teams (free), Admins: manage transcription and captions for Teams meetings and Transcribe your recordings (Word). Checked on 22 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Can you transcribe a Teams meeting?
Yes, if your organisation's policy allows it. During the meeting, select More actions and Transcribe, or record, which turns on transcription at the same time. When it ends, the organiser downloads it as .docx or .vtt from Recap in the meeting chat.
Can you transcribe a Teams meeting for free?
With Teams (free), Microsoft's help describes live captions that only the person who turns them on can see, not a downloadable transcript, and recording requires a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium subscription. If you have the recording, you can transcribe the file with another program.
Where is the transcript of a Teams meeting saved?
In the organiser's OneDrive, next to the recording if the meeting was recorded. You can view it from the meeting chat, on the Recap tab, until the organiser deletes it.
Does Teams transcribe in Spanish?
Yes. The spoken languages for transcription include Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico). You choose it when you start the transcription and you can change it later in the transcript panel.
Who can download the Teams transcript?
By default, the organiser and the co-organisers, as .docx or .vtt. The rest of the organisation can view it, but can only download it if the organiser or the administrator allows it.
Can you see the Teams transcript on your phone?
Yes, once the meeting has ended: in the meeting chat, tap Transcript. While the meeting is going on, the live transcript can only be seen in Teams for desktop.