# How long should meeting minutes be?

> For freelancers, consultants and anyone asked for the minutes after a client call on Google Meet or Microsoft Teams: how long meeting minutes should be, what sets the length, how long each section should run, when longer minutes are right, and what to cut when a set of minutes has grown past a page.

Canonical: https://trackheros.com/answers/how-long-should-meeting-minutes-be/  
Author: Sami Kanafani  
Updated: 2026-10-25

**In short:** Meeting minutes for an hour's client call should usually fit on one page: a three-to-five-sentence summary, one sentence per decision, one line per action with an owner and a date, and the open questions. Length follows what was decided, not how long people talked. Board and committee minutes run longer. TrackHeros writes Google Meet and Microsoft Teams minutes in a fixed shape and drops empty sections.

| Fact | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Typical length | About one page for an hour's client call |
| Summary | Three to five sentences |
| Each decision | One sentence |
| Each action | One line: what, who, by when |

Short enough to be read the day they arrive, and complete enough to settle an argument a month later. For most client calls that is one page. This answer is for freelancers, consultants and anyone who writes minutes after a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call and is not sure how much to put in. It branches from [how to write meeting minutes](/blog/how-to-write-meeting-minutes/).

## What decides the length of meeting minutes?

The number of decisions, actions and open questions, not the length of the meeting. A ninety-minute call that settled two things deserves a short set of minutes; a twenty-minute call that changed the scope, the price and the deadline deserves a longer one. If you find yourself writing who said what in what order, you are writing a transcript, not minutes.

## How long should each section be?

| Section        | Length                                                        |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Heading        | One line: client, meeting, date, attendees                    |
| Summary        | Three to five sentences                                       |
| Decisions      | One sentence each, in the words that were agreed              |
| Action items   | One line each: what, who, by when                             |
| Open questions | One line each, with who will answer                           |
| Discussion     | Only where a decision needs its reason; a few lines per topic |
| Next meeting   | One line                                                      |

The section most likely to bloat is discussion. Keep it only where someone reading the decision later would ask "why?", and write the reason in a sentence, not the debate.

## When should minutes be longer?

When the minutes are the formal record of a body that approves them, or when a meeting was contentious. Board, committee and governance minutes often have to record motions, votes and who was present under rules that differ by organisation. A client call where something went wrong, or a scope change was argued over, is worth a fuller account of what was agreed and why. Otherwise, longer minutes are read less carefully, which defeats the point.

## What should you cut from minutes that are too long?

Cut, in this order: anything only you need (that is notes, not minutes; see [minutes vs notes](/blog/meeting-minutes-vs-meeting-notes/)), the order the conversation happened in, agreement noises, background everyone knew, and explanations of decisions nobody will question. Keep every decision, every owned action with a date, every figure, and every open question. If the result is still two pages, the meeting probably covered two meetings' worth of decisions, and that is fine.

## How long are TrackHeros minutes?

As long as the meeting's content. By default, TrackHeros writes each Google Meet or Microsoft Teams project meeting into a fixed shape: summary, decisions, discussion by topic, agenda, milestones with dates, and action items with owners and due dates. Each client has its own minutes template with sections you can switch off, and a section the meeting left empty is dropped rather than filled. The [client meeting minutes template](/blog/client-meeting-minutes-template/) shows the shape, and the [meeting minutes](/features/meeting-minutes/) page shows the export.

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