# A Google Meet notetaker that joins as a participant

> TrackHeros joins your Google Meet calls as a named participant, records and transcribes them, and files the summary, decisions and action items under the right client. It joins meetings you host and meetings you were invited to, waiting to be admitted like any guest. For professionals who take client meetings on Google Meet; Microsoft Teams is covered separately.

Canonical: https://trackheros.com/features/google-meet-notetaker/  
Updated: 2026-09-02

TrackHeros joins your Google Meet calls as a participant: a named entry in the participant list, not a browser extension and not a recording you have to remember to start. It records, transcribes, and files the summary, decisions and action items under the client the meeting belongs to. This page is for professionals who take client meetings on Google Meet, including meetings they do not host. Microsoft Teams has [its own page](/features/microsoft-teams-notetaker/).

## What does the bot do in the meeting?

- It appears in the participant list under its own name. The default is "TrackHeros Notetaker"; you can change it per client — plain text, one line, no emoji — so one client sees "Sami's Notetaker" and another sees your company name.
- It can post a short greeting in the meeting chat when it joins, if you set one for the client. Something like "Hi, I take notes for Sami. This call is being recorded for his notes." Plain text only.
- It records the call and collects the platform's live captions.
- It listens and records; it does not speak.

Everyone in the call can see it. That is the point: a notetaker with a clear name in the participant list is the honest way to record a meeting, and the greeting makes the announcement automatic. Tell people it is coming anyway.

## How does it work?

| Step       | What happens                                                                                                                                                               |
| ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Invitation | A meeting lands on a connected Google account's calendar. Sync picks it up through Google's push notifications — see [multiple Google accounts](/features/multi-account/). |
| Link       | The Google Meet link is found wherever the invitation put it: the conference data, the location field or the free text of the description.                                 |
| Decision   | TrackHeros decides whether to join, from the auto-join setting for this meeting, then this series, then your account.                                                      |
| Join       | About two minutes before the start, the bot joins under the client's bot name. If admission is required, it waits.                                                         |
| Record     | It records the call and collects captions, with the real speaker names.                                                                                                    |
| Notes      | After the call, an audio pass over the recording produces the authoritative transcript, and the notes are written and filed under the client.                              |

Meetings that started more than ten minutes ago are not chased. A notetaker arriving in the last third of a call is worse than none, and it is not what anyone asked for. Reschedules move the bot with the meeting, and a cancellation cancels it, because both arrive through the same calendar sync that found the invitation in the first place.

## What if I am not the host?

Most client meetings are on the client's calendar, and you are a guest. The bot is a guest too. When it arrives and the meeting requires admission, it waits in the same way anyone else does until someone lets it in. Nothing about it needs host rights, and it does not use yours.

One caveat. Organisations that run Google Workspace can restrict who joins their meetings — people outside the organisation, for instance — and the bot is subject to those rules like any other participant. If a client's meetings refuse outside guests, or require every guest to be admitted by hand, the bot will be refused or held in the same way. Tell the client the notetaker is coming and ask them to admit it if their settings require it. There is a longer answer in [can a notetaker join a meeting you do not host](/blog/can-a-notetaker-join-a-meeting-you-dont-host/).

## When does it join, and when does it stay away?

Auto-join is on by default, because the promise is that meetings are captured without anyone remembering to do anything. Three levels decide, and the most specific wins:

| Level        | Use it for                                                                                               |
| ------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| This meeting | Keep the bot out of one occurrence, or send it to one meeting of a series you otherwise muted            |
| This series  | A recurring meeting. Applies to every occurrence, and takes over any per-meeting choice you made earlier |
| Your account | The default for everything else. On unless you turn it off                                               |

Clearing a choice at one level does not restore some remembered value; it falls back to the level above. The app shows which level decided for each meeting, because "off because you muted the series" and "off because you turned it off everywhere" call for different actions.

## What if the join fails?

Sometimes a join fails: nobody admitted the bot, the link changed, the meeting was cancelled after the bot was sent. When that happens, retry with one click. The app refuses to send a second bot into a meeting that already has one, so a retry — or an impatient double click — never produces two notetakers in the same call. Bot join rate is on the analytics page, because a missed meeting is the failure that matters most.

## What comes out afterwards?

A transcript with speaker names, a summary in a fixed shape, decisions, milestones, and action items with owners and due dates, all under the client — see [meeting minutes](/features/meeting-minutes/). Everything is scoped to that client from the moment the invitation was matched to its account, so the notes from a call with Client A cannot land in Client B's workspace. The recording itself plays back inside the app, through short-lived links tied to the meeting; there are no public recording URLs. Speaker attribution is never guessed: a line the captions could not attribute is labelled Unknown rather than handed to the likeliest person. Ask the assistant about the call afterwards and it answers from that client's meetings only, with a citation to the moment in the recording.

## Frequently asked

**Does the bot need to be the meeting host?**

No. It joins as a participant under its own name, and if the meeting requires admission it waits to be let in like anyone else. It needs no host rights and does not use yours.

**What name does the bot show in the participant list?**

TrackHeros Notetaker by default. You can change it per client, as plain text on one line with no emoji, so each client sees the name that fits your relationship with them. The bot can also post a short greeting in the chat when it joins.

**Can it join a Google Meet call the client set up from their own account?**

Yes, as long as the invitation carrying the link is on a connected Google calendar, or you add the link directly. The bot joins as a guest and waits to be admitted if the meeting requires it. A client's organisation can restrict outside guests, in which case the bot is subject to the same restriction.

**What if the bot fails to join?**

Retry with one click. The app will not send a second bot into a meeting that already has one, so a retry never causes two notetakers to appear in the same call.

---

TrackHeros is in private beta. Early access: https://trackheros.com/#early-access