How do I get the record audio only and transcibe option to become active in Teams for MAC?

In Microsoft Teams, the ability to record audio only and transcribe meetings may depend on several factors, including your account type and the settings configured by your organization. Since you mentioned you are using a Microsoft 365 personal account, here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot the issue:

1. Check Meeting Options: Ensure that the meeting options allow for recording and transcription. Sometimes, these settings can be restricted based on the type of meeting or the account being used.
2. Update Teams: Make sure that your Microsoft Teams application is up to date. Updates can sometimes introduce new features or fix existing issues.
3. Permissions: Verify that you have the necessary permissions to record and transcribe meetings. If you are not the organizer, the organizer may need to enable these features.
4. Audio Only Recording: Currently, Teams primarily supports video recording. If you need audio-only recordings, consider using an external audio recording tool or software that can record audio separately.
5. Contact Support: If you have checked all settings and still do not see the option, consider reaching out to Microsoft support for further assistance specific to your account type.

Unfortunately, the specific option for audio-only recording and transcription may not be available in all configurations or account types.

References:

• Overview: Recording and transcription for Teams meetings, events, and calls
• Manage Teams recording policies for meetings and events

Hi Margaret Tillson

It has been a while and I am writing to see how things are going with this issue.

Have you had a chance to check the replies provided?

Any update would be appreciated.

Hi, Margaret Tillson

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Sorry for this frustrating experience that you're encountering. Here are some workarounds you can try to resolve this issue:

1) Confirm you’re eligible to start transcription in this meeting

You must be in the organizer’s tenant and not a guest/external attendee. Guests and external users can’t start transcription, even if they can record.

Hover the lock icon on Start transcription to see the exact reason.

Fix > Ask a participant from the organizer’s org to start transcription and share the transcript after the meeting.

If the organizer limited Who can record and transcribe to Organizer and co‑organizers, attendees won’t see the button.

Fix > Ask the organizer to change Meeting options > Recording & transcription > Who can record and transcribe to Organizers, co‑organizers and presenters, or promote you to co‑organizer/presenter.

2) Check meeting policies (the most common blocker)

Your organizer/admin can disable transcription even when recording is allowed.

Fix (admin/organizer) > In Teams admin center > Meetings > Meeting policies, enable Meeting transcription (and recording if needed), then assign the policy. Policy changes may take time to propagate.

If the meeting was created via Graph API with allowTranscription = false, no attendee will have the button.

Fix > Close and recreate the meeting with transcription allowed.

3) Verify organizer-level settings inside Meeting options

Access control > If Who has access to the recording or transcript is restricted, you may not see the transcription controls.

Fix > Organizer updates Meeting options > Recording & transcription to grant broader access or explicitly allow you. Copilot/AI setting > If Allow Copilot is set to Off, transcription can be unavailable.

Fix > Organizer turns Allow Copilot On in Meeting options, then restarts the meeting if needed.

4) Start transcription correctly on Mac

In the meeting, select More actions > Record and transcribe > Start transcription, pick the Spoken language, then Confirm.

After the meeting, go to Chat > Recap > Download the transcript (.docx or .vtt).

5) Understand typical lock messages (and what to do)

• “Unavailable due to organization policy” > Admin must enable transcription for meetings/calls; wait for policy to take effect.
• “Only people in this org can start transcription” > You’re guest/external; ask someone in organizer’s org to start it.
• “Only organizer and co‑organizers can start transcription” > Request role change or broaden the setting to include presenters.

6) Storage and retrieval (to avoid large video files)

• Transcripts appear immediately in Recap. You can download and use the text for minutes without keeping any video.
• If recording is used, recordings go to OneDrive/SharePoint with expiration controls; but you can rely on transcript‑only to keep files small.

7) If you still need text but transcription is blocked

• Record the meeting audio only (if available in your tenant) to reduce file size, then extract minutes from the Recap transcript when policies allow it, or
• Capture audio outside Teams and Upload audio to Word to auto‑transcribe (.wav/.mp4/.m4a/.mp3) for personal minutes.

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back if you need further assistance.

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