How to Save the Chat and Captions Transcript in Google Meet

Google Meet is a powerful video conference tool, with many features including live closed captions and a panel for chat messages. What would be great though would be an easy way to save all of the captions and the chat messages from the meeting.

This would be especially valuable for teachers to have a detailed record of student participation in the session, including everything said or typed, and by whom, and at what time.

Unfortunately Google Meet does not have a built in option to save the live captions, and the only way to save the chat messages is to record the video of the meeting as well.

Thankfully there is an excellent and free extension called Meet Transcript that does all of this and a little more.

To help explain how to use this tool I have recorded a short 6-minute video on how you can save the transcript for the chat and live captions in Google Meet. See below for the video, as well as a detailed explanation of the process.

Tutorial Video (6 minutes)

And see all of my Google Classroom help videos here:

"Video Series: How to Use Google Classroom"

Installing the Extension

• So the first thing we will need to do is install the extension. To do this we will go to the extension page in the Chrome Web Store here: Meet Transcript extension link
• Now we can install the extension by clicking "Add to Chrome".
• And then giving permission for the extension to install.

• After the extension installs we will get a new page that opens asking our permission to let the extension save the transcripts to our Google Drive.
• We will click "Grant access to Google Drive" to allow this.
• We will now select our account.
• And then click the "Allow" button.

• Next a page will open up where we can adjust the settings for the extension if we wish to.
• For example we can choose to have captions automatically turned on, so the extension can record them.
• There is also an option to hide the captions if we want them turned on for capturing, but don't want to see them live. If you prefer to see the captions, just uncheck this box.
• Finally there is an option to turn the screenshot button on or off.

Now we are ready to use the Meet Transcript extension. Let's see how it works...

Using Meet Transcript

• First we will start up a Google Meet as normal.
• Because we have the Meet Transcript extension installed we will see some new buttons on the toolbar at the bottom of the Meet screen.

• First we will see the "Transcript" button. 
• If we left click on the button it will open the Google Doc with the live transcript from our session.
• If we right click on the button it will take us back to the "Settings" page for the extension.

• The next new button on the toolbar is the "Screenshot" button. 
• If we click this the extension will take a picture of our current screen and add that to the Google Doc transcript.

• Next notice that the live closed captions button is automatically turned on, because we had selected this in the settings for the extension. 
• The captions have to be turned on for the extension to record the transcript, so if you turn off captions the transcript will stop being saved until you turn the captions back on.
• As different people in the Google Meet speak, the extension will save what they say in the Google Document.
• It will also place a timestamp and the person's name before the text of what they said.
• This makes it very easy to keep track of who said what during a Meet.

• In addition to recording the live closed captions and the screenshots, the extension can also save the content from the chat panel in Google Meet. 
• For this to work you have to have the chat panel open so the extension can capture the chat messages, so be sure to open the chat periodically throughout the Meet.

• The chat content gets added to the Google Doc at the bottom below the closed captions transcript.

As the Google Meet goes on the extension will automatically add all of the live close captions and chat messages and screenshots to the Google Document. At the end of the meeting you will have a full record or everything said and typed, as well as any important screenshots.

• Because this is just a regular Google Document, you can share this transcript with others just like you would normally share any Google file.
• In the future you can find all of your transcripts in your Google Drive in a folder titled "Meet Transcript".

And that's it! That is how you can use the Chrome extension "Meet Transcript" to save a copy of chat messages and closed captions in Meet, as well as take screenshots.

Post by Eric Curts. Connect with me on Twitter at twitter.com/ericcurts