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How to Take Meeting Minutes in 2026: 5 Steps to Replace Notion Free with Tinrec
Have you ever calculated: for a 1-hour meeting, you spend 30 minutes manually jotting down key points, and another 30 minutes organizing them into meeting minutes? Time is wasted on note-taking rather than action. Although Notion's free plan offers a trial of AI meeting notes, it has many limitations. It's better to switch to Tinrec and get it done in 5 steps.
Before You Start | What You Need to Prepare
- A computer (Windows or Mac) or phone, download the Tinrec app or use the web version.
- Sign up for a Tinrec account; the free plan is enough to start.
- Prepare an online meeting (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, etc.) or an audio file.
- A stable internet connection, as real-time transcription requires connectivity.
Step 1 | Record the Meeting Content
The goal of this step is to capture clear meeting audio, which is essential for subsequent transcription and summarization.
Open the Tinrec desktop version and select the "Record" function. If you're recording an online meeting, simply click start; Tinrec captures system audio without a bot, so you don't need to invite a bot to join the meeting. For in-person meetings, keep your phone close to the speaker.
Why not use Notion free? Notion's free plan browser can only record the microphone; the desktop version can record system audio, and AI features have trial limits. Tinrec's free plan also allows bot-free recording of online meetings.
After completion, the recording appears on the main screen, showing duration and file size.
Step 2 | Let AI Generate a Transcript
After recording, Tinrec automatically generates a transcript. You can also upload existing audio or video files for AI transcription.
Once transcription is complete, the transcript retains the original speech, making it easy to review and search.
Notion's free AI meeting notes can also transcribe, but its post-processing capabilities are limited. Tinrec offers more comprehensive post-processing.
Step 3 | Quickly Proofread the Transcript
AI transcription may contain errors, especially when multiple people speak simultaneously or there is background noise.
Click into the transcript, quickly review, and correct obvious errors. Tinrec supports editing, so you can modify the text directly.
After proofreading, subsequent summaries and to-dos will be more accurate.
Step 4 | Generate Meeting Minutes and To-Dos
This is Tinrec's strength: automatically generating summaries, chapters, key points, and action items.
Stop organizing recordings by hand
Upload audio or video and automatically get a transcript, summary, and action items
On the meeting page, click "AI Summary," and Tinrec will extract key points, decisions, and action items from the transcript.
Notion's free plan can also generate summaries, but Tinrec's AI Q&A feature allows you to ask follow-up questions about the meeting content, such as "What budget constraints did the client mention?"
Step 5 | Export and Share
You can export the organized meeting minutes as TXT, DOCX, PDF, etc., or directly export to tools like Notion, Google Docs, OneNote, and more.
Team users can save meeting materials to the team space, and new members can also view historical meetings.
This way, meeting content becomes searchable, collaborative data, rather than scattered in personal notes.
FAQ and Troubleshooting
Q: How much quota does Tinrec's free plan have? A: The free plan provides basic quota to experience recording, import, summarization, and transcription, suitable for light use. Specific quotas are subject to the official website.
Q: What if the transcribed text has many errors? A: Check if the recording environment is too noisy. Tinrec supports smart noise reduction; enable it before recording to improve accuracy. For important content, it's recommended to cross-check with the recording playback.
Q: What's the difference between Tinrec and Notion free for meeting notes? A: Tinrec focuses on meeting minutes and team collaboration, with advantages like bot-free recording, AI Q&A, to-do extraction, and team space. Notion's free meeting notes are a supplementary feature with more limitations.
Pro Tips | 3 Ways to Double Tinrec's Efficiency
- Use AI Q&A: After the meeting, ask "What was decided in this meeting?" and Tinrec will find the answer from the transcript, so you don't have to re-read it yourself.
- Team Glossary: Teams can set common terms to improve recognition of specialized words, such as product names or project codes.
- Real-time Translation: For cross-language meetings, enable real-time translation to view the original, translated, or bilingual text.
If You Don't Use Tinrec, Here Are Alternatives
- Notion Free: Suitable for users who already have a Notion workspace, but AI trial limits and recording limitations apply.
- Otter.ai: Mature for English meetings, but Chinese experience is not as good as Tinrec.
- If you value Chinese meetings, bot-free recording, and team knowledge accumulation, Tinrec is more suitable.
Conclusion
By learning the 5 steps above, you can use Tinrec to turn meeting recordings into transcripts, summaries, and to-dos, and quickly find key points with AI Q&A. Starting today, you no longer need to spend a lot of time manually organizing meeting minutes. Download Tinrec's free plan and try it with one of your own meetings.
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