How to Save a Zoom Transcript and Where the File Goes

#zoom #productivity #tutorial #a11y

Zoom no longer saves captions. Save a meeting transcript from the Transcript panel instead, find the .TXT in Documents/Zoom, and see what's left if you forgot.

URL: https://freelivecaption.com/en/posts/zoom-transcript-save
Published: 2026-10-06
Updated: 2026-10-06
Author: Hana Mori (https://freelivecaption.com/en/about)
Topic: Meetings (https://freelivecaption.com/en/topics/meetings)
Tags: Meetings, Zoom, Transcripts

Summary

Since May 2026, Zoom doesn't let anyone save captions. The text you can keep is a meeting transcript, which the host or an admin has to turn on.
In the Zoom desktop app, click More, then Transcript, then Save transcript. Zoom's guide says the .TXT is saved in Documents/Zoom on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Meeting transcripts need the host on a Pro, Business or Enterprise account, and the host's settings decide who can save.
Forgot to save? Captions can't be saved after the meeting. Ask the host whether Zoom kept a transcript or made an audio transcript of a cloud recording.

Zoom stopped saving captions in May 2026

If older instructions sent you looking for a Save captions option, it's gone. Zoom's FAQ on the May 2026 caption and transcript changes separates the two features. Captions are for reading along: during the meeting you can scroll back through the last 3 minutes, and once it ends nobody can save or download them. They do still show when you play back a recording. Zoom's page on saving closed captions dates the change to May 18, 2026.

The text you can keep now is the meeting transcript. It's off by default, so a host or an admin has to turn it on, and the FAQ lists the old Full transcript and Save captions settings as removed. When we checked Zoom's help pages on October 5, 2026, at least one older page, the host's guide to automated captions, still showed a View full transcript button in the captions menu.

You want	Use	What it takes
To read along live	Captions	Can't be saved; they show only live and when a recording plays back
A text file during the meeting	Meeting transcript, then Save transcript	The host's account is Pro, Business or Enterprise, and the host lets you save
The text after the meeting	A transcript Zoom kept for the host	An admin lets hosts view and manage transcripts after the meeting
Text that matches a recording	Cloud recording with an audio transcript	A paid account; only the host or a co-host can record to the cloud
The main points, not every word	Meeting summary with AI	An eligible Zoom Workplace plan; the host starts it

Getting the .TXT during the meeting

Zoom's guide to using meeting transcripts gives these steps for the desktop app:

In the meeting controls, click More, then Transcript. If you're the host, the transcript starts. If you're a participant and it isn't running, Zoom opens Ask host to start transcription. Click Request transcription, and the host can choose Decline or Start transcription.
The Transcript panel opens on the right of the meeting window and fills in as people speak.
At the bottom of the panel, click Save transcript. Zoom saves a .TXT file to your computer.
Click View in Folder, or Finder on a Mac, to see the file.

None of this needs a recording. Zoom's saving steps are written for the meeting itself, so save before you leave or the host ends it.

On a phone, Zoom lists the mobile apps among the requirements for meeting transcripts, but its saving steps and the folders it names are for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you need the file, join from the desktop app.

Where Zoom puts the file

The transcript guide names one folder per system:

Windows: C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\Zoom
Mac: /Users/[Username]/Documents/Zoom
Linux: home/[Username]/Documents/Zoom

Computer recordings go to the same folder by default. Zoom's page on managing computer recordings shows where to change that: your profile picture, then Settings, the Recording tab, and Storage location under Local recording storage. The transcript guide doesn't say whether saved transcripts follow that setting. Click View in Folder or Finder right after saving and you'll see exactly where the file went.

Who's allowed to save

Zoom's page on enabling meeting transcripts requires the host to have a Pro, Business or Enterprise account, and says transcripts follow the host's meeting transcript settings. A host on a free account can't offer one.

A host turns it on in the Zoom web portal: profile picture, My account, Settings, Meeting, then the Meeting transcript switch under In Meeting (Advanced). If the switch is grayed out, it's locked at the group or account level and only your Zoom admin can change it. Two sub-settings decide what everyone else gets:

Allow all meeting participants to view transcripts during the meeting.
Allow saving of transcripts to computer by, with these choices: the host only, the host and co-hosts, participants who aren't guests (external participants), participants from specified IP addresses or ranges, or everyone in the meeting.

So if you can read the transcript but can't save it, ask the host who that second setting includes. If you joined from another organization, you count as a guest.

Text in the wrong language

When Zoom writes English words over speech in another language, check the caption language. Zoom's page on viewing captions says it applies to everyone in the meeting and tells Zoom which language to listen for. In the desktop app it defaults to the host's operating system language; in the mobile apps the default is English.

To change it, click the up arrow next to Show/Hide captions, choose Caption language, pick the language and click Save. This doesn't translate anything. For captions in another language, see our guide to Zoom translated captions. After you change it, watch the next lines in the Transcript panel to see whether the transcript follows.

Zoom generates audio transcripts of cloud recordings in English by default. Its audio transcription guide lets the host fix that afterwards: in the web portal, open Recordings & Transcripts, the Cloud recordings tab and the meeting, hover over the audio transcript file, click Change Language, pick the language and click Save. Zoom then transcribes the audio again.

Forgot to save

If the meeting is still running and the transcript is on, open More, then Transcript, and save now.

After the meeting, first check your email for a meeting summary. Then ask the host, because transcripts and cloud recordings sit in the host's account:

A transcript Zoom kept. An admin can let hosts view, delete and download transcripts after the meeting; the meeting transcript settings list it as Allow hosts to view and manage transcripts after the meeting. For transcripts kept with a meeting summary, Zoom's steps for finding them are: profile picture, Profile, Recordings and Transcripts, the Transcripts tab, then Download.
An audio transcript of a cloud recording. The host needs a paid account with cloud recording and audio transcription turned on. Zoom's audio transcription guide says the host gets an email when the recording is ready and another when the audio transcript is; the transcript is a separate VTT file in the list of recordings. According to Zoom's cloud recording page, processing usually takes about twice the recorded length and can take up to 24 hours. A recording a co-host started shows up only in the host's list, and a deleted one stays in the web portal's trash for 30 days, per Zoom's guide to finding recordings.
A meeting summary. If the host started Meeting summary with AI, Zoom sent it after the meeting to the people Zoom's summary settings share it with, as its meeting summary settings describe. It's a summary, not a word-for-word record.
A computer recording. Free accounts can record to a computer, but Zoom's audio transcription covers cloud recordings only. The video stays on the computer that recorded it, so ask whoever recorded it for the file. Zoom won't transcribe it, but a file transcription app can; our MacWhisper guide covers transcribing a recording on a Mac.

If there's none of these, write down the decisions from your notes and label them as notes, not a transcript.

Does Zoom tell anyone?

A participant can't start a transcript quietly. In Zoom's transcript guide, the participant sends a request and the host chooses whether to start it. While it runs, there's a Transcript icon in the top-right corner of the meeting window, for the host and for participants. Admins can also set a custom disclaimer for transcripts that participants see when transcripts are enabled. Zoom's pages say who may save the transcript, but they don't describe any notice to others when someone clicks Save transcript.

Recording is announced. Zoom's page on the recording consent disclaimer says participants get a notification when a recording starts or when they join one already being recorded, and can consent or leave. Afterwards the host can generate a report of who consented.

A phone on the desk or a recorder app outside Zoom shows nothing to anyone. Tell the people in the meeting and ask the host before you record or transcribe it yourself.

If the host won't turn transcripts on

You can still follow the call with live captions on your own screen, if the meeting allows it. Vocena runs on Mac (macOS 15.5 or later) and on iPhone and iPad (iOS or iPadOS 26 or later). On a Mac it shows free live captions of the system audio or the microphone, with no time limit, keeps each session in its Library and can export the text as TXT. To caption Zoom's audio on an iPhone, you need a physical iPhone running iOS 27. It doesn't create a Zoom transcript or change what the host allows.

If your meetings are on Teams, our guide to saving Teams captions covers what Teams keeps.