How to write meeting minutes from a recording

By Harshit Maurya, maker of Cued · Updated 25 October 2026

Get a transcript of the recording, then read it for outcomes only: what was decided, what was agreed or voted on, who will do what by when, and what was left open. Put those into a short template (meeting details, attendees, decisions, action items, open questions, next meeting) and leave the discussion out, because minutes record what was done at a meeting, not what was said. Check names and numbers against the audio before you send them.

What meeting minutes are (and what they are not)

Meeting minutes are the official, short record of what a meeting did: who was there, what was decided, what was voted on, and who agreed to do what. They are not a transcript and they are not a summary of the conversation. The official Robert's Rules of Order FAQ puts it plainly: minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not what was said, and summarising the discussion in them is improper.

Michigan State University's Office of Academic Governance, writing for its own committees, calls the most common mistake trying to summarise the reports and arguments made in debate. That rule is written for formal bodies like boards and committees, but it works just as well for a team meeting or a client call. People open minutes to check an outcome, not to relive the argument.

The recording and transcript are your raw material. The minutes are the finished product.
	Recording	Transcript	Meeting minutes
What it is	The audio or video of the whole meeting	Every word, as text	Outcomes only: decisions, votes, actions
Typical length for a 1-hour meeting	1 hour	Many pages	About one page
Who reads it	Someone checking an exact moment	Someone searching for a quote	Everyone, including people who missed it
Includes the debate?	Yes	Yes	No

Why a recording makes minutes easier (and the trap it sets)

Writing minutes live is hard. You have to listen, follow the discussion and type at the same time, and the one sentence that mattered ("OK, let's go with the second option") is easy to miss. With a recording you can join the conversation properly and write the minutes afterwards, checking the exact wording of a decision instead of guessing it.

The trap is that a transcript makes it tempting to keep too much. When every word is already typed, it feels wasteful to throw most of it away, and the minutes grow into a long recap of who said what. Resist that. The transcript is still there if anyone needs the detail; the minutes should stay short enough to read in a minute.

Keep: the exact wording of motions and decisions, the result of any vote, actions with an owner and a due date, numbers and dates that were agreed.
Leave out: arguments for and against, long explanations, side conversations, and summaries of reports (attach or link the report instead).
Mark the minutes "Draft" until whoever needs to approve them has done so.

Before you record: tell everyone

Recording a meeting to write minutes is ordinary, but the people in it should know. In the United States, federal law and most states only need one person in the conversation to agree to a recording. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press lists 11 states that mainly require everyone's consent: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. When a call crosses state lines, its advice is to assume the stricter law applies.

The simplest habit is to say at the start, "I'm recording this so I can write the minutes, is everyone OK with that?" and to let the answer be on the recording. Some call apps tell people automatically; for example, Microsoft says everyone in a Teams meeting sees a notice once transcription starts. Apps that record on your own computer usually don't notify anyone, so the telling is up to you. This isn't legal advice; if your meetings involve clients, patients or sensitive matters, check the rules that apply to you.

The 10-minute method: from recording to minutes

Get the transcript. Use your call app's transcript or a transcription app on your computer (see the table below). Reading is much faster than listening back to an hour of audio.
Fill in the meeting details first. Name of the meeting or group, date, start and end time, who chaired it, who was there and who sent apologies. Most of this comes from the calendar invite, not the transcript.
Search the transcript for outcome words. Use Find (⌘F on a Mac) for words like "agree", "decide", "go with", "vote", "will", "by Friday", "next week", "action" and "follow up". Most decisions and tasks sit right next to one of these.
Write each decision as one sentence. Use the final wording, not the first suggestion: "Agreed to move the launch to 12 March." If there was a formal motion, record its exact wording, who moved it and whether it passed.
Write each action as task, owner, date. "[Name] to send the revised quote to the client by Thursday." An action without an owner or a date is an open question, so move it there.
List what was left open. Questions nobody could answer, decisions pushed to the next meeting, and anything waiting on someone outside the room.
Check names and numbers against the audio. Transcripts get names, figures and quiet or overlapping voices wrong. Jump to the moment in the recording and listen to anything that will matter later, especially amounts, dates and who agreed to what.
Send it within a day, marked as a draft. Share it while people still remember the meeting, and ask for corrections by a set date. Corrections go into the draft before it is approved.

A meeting minutes template you can copy

Paste this into a doc or notes app and keep it as your starting point. Replace the words in brackets. If a section has nothing in it, write "None" rather than deleting it, so readers know you didn't forget.

DRAFT: Minutes of [meeting name], [date], [start time] to [end time], [place or call app]
Chair: [name]. Minutes taken by: [name].
Present: [names]. Apologies: [names]. Guests: [name and topic only].
Previous minutes: [approved / approved with corrections / not discussed].
Decisions: 1. [One sentence per decision, final wording.] 2. [...]
Votes (if any): [Exact wording of the motion]. Moved by [name]. Result: [passed / failed], [numbers if counted].
Action items: [Task], owner [name], due [date]. One line each.
Open questions: [Question], to be answered by [name] at or before [date or next meeting].
Attachments: [Links to slides, reports or documents discussed, instead of summarising them].
Next meeting: [date, time, place or link].

For a team meeting or a client call you can skip Chair, Previous minutes and Votes. Decisions, Action items and Open questions are the three sections that should never be missing.

Where to get a transcript of your meeting

Built-in transcripts usually belong to the organiser. If you're a guest writing minutes, ask the organiser to share it.
Where the meeting happened	How to get a transcript	Things to know
Google Meet	Turn on Transcripts during the meeting.	Only on some paid Google Workspace plans. The file is saved to the organiser's Google Drive and linked from the Calendar event; the host, co-hosts and whoever turned it on get an email.
Microsoft Teams	The organiser or a co-organiser starts transcription from More actions.	Afterwards it is in the meeting's chat under Recap → Transcript. Organisers can download it as .docx or .vtt; other people may not be able to.
Zoom	Depends on your plan and on cloud versus local recording.	See our guide to getting a Zoom transcript for a local recording on a Mac.
Any call, recorded on your Mac	A recorder and transcription app on your own computer.	Works when you aren't the organiser or the call app's transcript is off. Nobody is told automatically, so ask first.

A common snag: you are the one asked to write the minutes, but you aren't the organiser, so the built-in transcript isn't yours to turn on or download. Either ask the organiser before the meeting, or record on your own computer with everyone's agreement.

Where Cued fits

Cued is an AI note taker for Mac. It records calls in Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Webex and Slack through the Mac itself, so no bot joins the meeting, and it writes a live transcript of both sides on your Mac. After the call it drafts a summary with key points and action items, which is a good first pass at the Decisions and Action items sections of the template above. You still check it and write the final minutes yourself.

Recording, transcription and summaries run on the Mac with on-device models and work offline; nothing is uploaded. ⌘K search finds a decision across every past meeting in plain words, which helps when someone asks what was agreed three meetings ago. Two honest limits: transcripts are good, not perfect, especially with quiet or overlapping voices, and because no bot joins, nobody is notified, so telling people is your job. Cued works with calls it records itself; it doesn't import existing audio files. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later, and it is a one-time payment, not a subscription.

Questions

Can I write meeting minutes from a recording?

Yes, and it is often easier than writing them live. Get a transcript, pull out the decisions, votes, actions and open questions, put them into a template, and check names and numbers against the audio before you send them.

Should meeting minutes include what people said?

No. Robert's Rules of Order describes minutes as a record of what was done at a meeting, not what was said. Record decisions, the wording and result of motions, and actions; leave the discussion in the recording or transcript.

What is the difference between a transcript and meeting minutes?

A transcript is every word that was spoken. Minutes are a short record of the outcomes: who attended, what was decided, what was voted on and who will do what by when. A one-hour meeting can produce many pages of transcript and about a page of minutes.

Can I use AI to write meeting minutes?

An AI note taker can draft a summary and a list of action items from the transcript, which saves most of the work. Treat it as a draft: check every decision, owner and date against the recording, because transcripts can get names, numbers and overlapping voices wrong.

Do I need permission to record a meeting for minutes?

It depends on where people are. Some US states require everyone's consent, and when a call crosses state lines the cautious approach is to follow the stricter rule. The easy habit is to ask at the start and keep the answer on the recording. This isn't legal advice.

How much does Cued cost?

Cued is a one-time payment, not a subscription: $9 for the first 50 founding members, then $29 with a year of updates.

Try Cued on your next call. Your script in the notch, your call recorded and summarised on your Mac.

Download for Mac