How to Transcribe Meeting Audio with NotebookLM (2026): Upload Recordings, Get Transcripts & Auto-Generate Action Items

The meeting ends, and your boss drops a message in the group chat: "Send me the meeting notes before you leave." You open the recording on your phone—a 40-minute conversation. Just listening and typing it out would take two hours, not counting summarizing key points and action items.

This article compiles 5 ways to turn meeting recordings into transcripts, focusing on the most-asked-about NotebookLM: how to upload, where the transcript is hidden, and how to prompt it to output a readable format. The other 4 methods are also listed so you can choose one based on budget and data sensitivity.

Why do you need meeting transcripts?

The value of a transcript isn't just "keeping a record." It has two practical uses: first, to go back and confirm numbers, deadlines, and owners mentioned in the meeting; second, to condense spoken discussion into a written record so those who missed the meeting can quickly catch up.

In the past, this required manual typing—a 1-hour recording often took 2 to 3 hours to organize. Now, feed the audio to an AI tool and get a first draft in minutes; you only need to spend time proofreading.

Let's start with NotebookLM, which I find the smoothest among free tools.

Option 1 | NotebookLM—Upload a recording to auto-generate a transcript, and ask follow-up questions

NotebookLM is an AI note-taking tool from Google that uses the Gemini model to analyze your uploaded data. Give it a meeting recording, and it automatically transcribes it and can answer your questions about the content.

Key highlights

1. Upload audio and get text automatically—no extra software needed. Supports MP3, WAV, and other audio formats, with a 200MB limit per file. Most meeting recordings under 1 hour fit, which is quite sufficient in practice. Note that limits may change periodically; refer to NotebookLM's official announcements.

2. The transcript is in "Sources"—no need to search elsewhere. After a successful upload, the middle "Chat" area first shows a summary to help you quickly grasp what the meeting was about. The transcript itself is in the Sources area; click the audio file and the AI-transcribed text appears below.

3. Ask precise questions about the content. It uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), meaning it finds answers from the data you provide, so it's less likely to make things up. You can ask "What three things were decided in this meeting?" or "Who is responsible for which item?" and it will refer back to the transcript to answer.

4. Use prompts to reformat the transcript as you want. This is the biggest difference from pure transcription tools. You can ask in the chat box to output a format with timestamps and speakers, or specify using Taiwanese terminology.

How to use: 5 steps

Step 1: Sign in and create a notebook. Log in with a Google account; first-time users see a privacy and usage notice. The notice states that data won't be used to train NotebookLM without permission, but this is still a Google-managed environment—evaluate sensitive content first.

Step 2: Upload the meeting recording to "Sources." Click Add Source, choose Upload File, and drag the recording in. Each notebook can hold up to 50 sources—great for adding the recording, agenda, and previous meeting notes from the same meeting.

Step 3: Wait for the summary to appear—that means transcription is done. When a summary pops up in the chat area, the audio has been read. If importing a YouTube video, ensure it's public and uploaded more than 72 hours ago.

Step 4: Use a prompt to request the transcript format. Enter a prompt like this in the chat box:

"Please output a complete transcript based on this meeting recording in the format: Timestamp: Speaker: Content, using Taiwanese terminology. At the end, separately list meeting conclusions and action items, with owners and deadlines for action items."

Note that speaker identification isn't always 100% accurate, especially when multiple people speak quickly in turn—proofread the output yourself.

Step 5: Save as a note and export. Save the generated result as a note, confirm it's correct, then export to a document format to use as official meeting notes.

Who it's for

Suitable for general office workers, project leads, and researchers organizing interview transcripts. Free to use, friendly for budget-conscious individual users.

Option 2 | Gemini chatbot—same recording, just ask it to organize

The Gemini chatbot also supports analyzing audio files, more directly: upload the audio and ask it to organize into a transcript. Its semantic analysis is good, suitable for when you need a quick first draft.

The difference is that NotebookLM centralizes data into a notebook where you can cross-reference multiple sources; Gemini is more for single-conversation processing. If you only occasionally transcribe a recording, Gemini is easier.

Option 3 | EchoScript—pure speech-to-text, get something first

Tools like EchoScript have a simple role: turn speech into text. The output is usually raw—no paragraphs, no key point summary—and needs your own processing.

A practical approach is "transcribe first, organize later": use EchoScript to get raw text, then paste the whole transcript into NotebookLM and ask it to restructure into a structured record. This two-step method is especially useful for meetings with heavy accents or mixed Chinese-English.

Option 4 | MacWhisper, WhisperDesktop—keep sensitive meetings on your own computer

If your meeting content involves client data, financial reports, or unreleased product info, it's best to run transcription on your own computer. MacWhisper is for macOS, WhisperDesktop for Windows—both run speech recognition locally.

Drawbacks: you need to install them, they require some computer power, and they won't summarize for you. But for meetings where audio can't be uploaded to the cloud, this is the most practical option.

Option 5 | iPhone Voice Memos—a completely free backup solution

iPhone's built-in Voice Memos app with the Notes app can now transcribe recordings directly, no subscription needed.

It's suitable for short meetings, one-on-one interviews, or when you just want to jot down key points. But no AI Q&A, no summary—if the transcript is long, you'll have to read it all yourself.

With so many options, how to choose?

• Want to transcribe and then ask for key points and get action items → NotebookLM; this is its strength, others can't do it. • Already have scattered transcripts and need to restructure into a complete record → transcribe first, then pour everything into NotebookLM to organize. • Just want to transcribe a recording temporarily without creating a notebook → Gemini chatbot. • Meeting content can't go to the cloud → MacWhisper or WhisperDesktop, process locally. • Don't want to spend money and meetings are short → iPhone Voice Memos, good enough.

Simply put, if your need is "transcript plus key point summary," NotebookLM does it in one go most easily; only when sensitive data is a concern do you need to fall back to local tools.

4 things to know before using NotebookLM for meeting transcripts

First, put your SOP in the Sources area. If your meeting notes have a fixed format, don't re-prompt every time. Save your company's template as a document, upload it to Sources, and ask it to read the SOP before each run. This makes output format much more stable.

Second, recording quality is everything. Even the best AI can't fix recordings full of echo or multiple people talking at once. During meetings, keep the microphone close to the speaker; for online meetings, enable each person's mic instead of relying on a single room mic.

Third, a transcript is not meeting notes. A transcript is raw material; meeting notes are the finished product. Recommended flow: get the transcript, ask AI to produce conclusions and action items, then manually confirm owners and deadlines before sending out.

Fourth, check file size first. The per-file limit is 200MB; if exceeded, compress or split into two parts. Spending ten seconds checking file size before uploading saves re-upload time.

FAQ

Q: Is NotebookLM free for meeting transcripts? Currently basic use is free; just log in with a Google account. Quotas and file limits may change; refer to official announcements.

Q: Can it handle Chinese meetings? Will mixed Chinese-English get messy? Yes. Chinese recognition is good; mixed Chinese-English passages may occasionally have inconsistent spelling—you can specify in the prompt "keep original language, do not translate" to reduce confusion.

Q: Where exactly is the transcript? I only see a summary. The summary appears in the middle chat area; the transcript is in the "Sources" area. Click the audio file you uploaded, and the full AI-transcribed text expands below.

Q: Can it automatically label who said what? You can prompt for a "Timestamp: Speaker: Content" format, but it doesn't guarantee correct speaker identification every time. For multi-person meetings, proofread the output manually.

Q: Will my meeting recording be used to train AI after upload? The privacy and usage notice shown at login states that data won't be used to train NotebookLM without permission. However, this is still a cloud service environment; for sensitive content, consider local tools.

Q: Can I share the transcript with colleagues? Yes, via sharing features or export as a document and put into your team's knowledge base. This is also how one-time meeting records accumulate into organizational assets.

Conclusion

The real time-consuming part of meeting notes is never typing—it's re-listening and organizing. NotebookLM compresses these two into minutes; you just proofread and confirm conclusions.

If you haven't tried it, upload your most recent meeting recording, let it transcribe once to see the results, then decide whether to standardize the whole process.

References

• 搞定會議紀錄！AI語音轉逐字稿怎麼做？Gemini Notebook、Gemini、EchoScript操作解析｜104職場力
• EP10｜老闆要會議紀錄：AI逐字稿工具怎麼選？ – 知識遊牧工作室
• 運用NotebookLM快速製作會議紀錄-1/2｜維那思的異想世界
• 📋 Google NotebookLM｜會議紀錄自動生成篇 開完會還在辛苦打逐字稿？現在用 NotebookLM 就能全自動完成。 🎙️ 語音轉文字 上傳錄音檔（限 200MB），自動辨識內容，無需額外軟體。 📝 逐字稿生成 透過 prompts 指令轉換為逐字稿，含時間戳與講者標註。 範例格式：00:00:00：發言者：內容 ⚙️ 客製化設定 可輸出符合台灣語境的用字與格式， 支援指令： 1️⃣ 不顯示來源 2️⃣ 採台灣用語 3️⃣ 自動生成摘要與代辦事項 💡 應用建議 將生成檔儲存成筆記，整合 SOP 後再匯出 Word 或 PDF， 即可成為專業會議紀錄模板。 🧩 進階技巧 若想讓繁瑣、重複的文書作業真正省時，關鍵不是一昧丟資料給 NotebookLM， 而是先建立好 SOP，放入來源區，並要求 NotebookLM 在每次運行前先讀完 SOP 再開始執行。 🔗 分享與輸出 透過「共用」功能快速分送給同事或存入知識庫。
• 如何透過 NotebookLM 將錄音檔快速轉成逐字稿，還能提問挖掘重點？｜小圓在路上