How do I get Record and transcribe in Teams? Transcribe isn't working

Question

How do I get Record and transcribe in Teams? Transcribe isn't working. I have MS365 Premium for family with 2 users

Answer 1

For “Record and transcribe” to work in Teams, two things must be in place:

1. The Teams admin must allow recording and transcription for the account.
2. The meeting organizer’s options must permit recording/transcription and Copilot (if used).

Since Microsoft 365 Family is a consumer subscription, the key checks are inside Teams itself and in the meeting options.

1. Confirm recording/transcription is allowed for the account

Recording and transcription are controlled by policy:

• Recording and transcription must be enabled in the Teams Calling Policy for the account.
• If this is not enabled, the Record and transcribe menu or Start transcription option will not appear or will fail.

Because this is policy-based, if the account is part of an organization (work/school), the IT admin must enable it as described in the calling policy documentation referenced in:

“Your IT admin must allow recording and transcription for your account. This is enabled in the Teams Calling Policy.”

If using a pure personal/Family account and the feature is missing, it may not be available for that account type in the same way as for work/school tenants.

2. Start recording and transcription in a call/meeting

Once allowed by policy, use these steps in Teams:

1. Join the call or meeting in Teams.
2. In the call controls, select More actions (three dots).
3. Select Record and transcribe.
4. Choose Start recording or Start transcription.
   • Recording saves audio, video, and screen sharing.
   • Transcription creates a text version of what’s said.
5. Confirm the spoken language for transcription when prompted.
6. All participants will see a banner that the call is being recorded or transcribed.

If “Record and transcribe” or “Start transcription” is missing or greyed out, continue with the checks below.

3. Check meeting options (organizer settings)

If in a scheduled meeting and transcription is not working, the organizer’s meeting options may be blocking it.

In the meeting options under Recording & transcription:

• Who can record and transcribe controls who can start recording/transcription:
  • If set to Organizers and co-organizers, other participants cannot start transcription.
  • If set to No one, nobody can start recording or transcription.

If seeing tooltips like:

• “Unavailable because the meeting organizer has disabled transcription for this meeting. Reach out to the meeting organizer for access.”
  • The organizer set Who can record and transcribe to No one.
  • The organizer must change this option to allow recording/transcription.
• “Only meeting organizer and co-organizer can start transcription for this meeting. Reach out to the meeting organizer for access.”
  • The organizer set Who can record and transcribe to Organizer and co-organizers.
  • The organizer can either:
    • Change it to Organizers, co-organizers and presenters, or
    • Add the user as a co-organizer.

If the organizer has restricted Who has access to the recording or transcript, the transcription button may only be available to the organizer/co-organizers or specific people.

4. Copilot-related restrictions

If Copilot is involved in the meeting:

• If Allow Copilot is turned Off under Copilot and other AI, the transcription button is unavailable to all attendees.
  • The organizer must close the meeting, turn on Copilot in meeting options, and restart the meeting.
• The Who can record and transcribe option cannot be set to No one if Allow Copilot is set to During and after the meeting.

5. If transcription still doesn’t work

If:

• The Teams Calling Policy allows recording/transcription,
• Meeting options are correctly configured,
• Copilot settings are not blocking transcription,

but transcription still does not work, contact Microsoft support (for consumer accounts) or the organization’s IT admin (for work/school accounts) to verify:

• That the account type supports Teams recording/transcription,
• That policies have propagated correctly.

---

References:

• Record and transcribe calls in Microsoft Teams
• I can't transcribe a meeting in Microsoft Teams