You don't need a dedicated recorder or a laptop open on the table to transcribe an in-person meeting. The phone in your pocket is enough — the trick is getting from raw room audio to a clean, speaker-labelled transcript, and then to minutes you'd actually send.
Here's the whole workflow, start to finish.
Why your phone beats a dedicated recorder
A standalone voice recorder gives you a file. Then you're stuck: uploading it somewhere, finding a transcription service, cleaning up the output, and writing the summary by hand. Using your phone with a tool that does the whole chain collapses those steps into one — record, and the transcript and minutes come back finished.
Phone microphones are also better than people assume. For a normal meeting room with the phone on the table, the audio is comfortably good enough for accurate transcription.
Step by step
- 1. Open GetNotes in your phone's browser. No app install, no bot — it runs on the web.
- 2. Name the meeting and hit record. Set the phone flat on the table, roughly in the middle of the room.
- 3. Have the meeting. Participate normally; the recording captures everyone. Longer meetings are fine — Pro handles up to three hours per recording.
- 4. Stop, and let it process. GetNotes transcribes the audio and writes the minutes automatically.
- 5. Review and share. Skim the summary, adjust anything, and send.
Getting a clean, speaker-labelled transcript
A transcript is far more useful when it knows who spoke. GetNotes labels speakers automatically, so the record reads as a conversation — "Speaker 1 / Speaker 2" turns instead of an undifferentiated block — and the minutes can correctly attribute decisions and actions.
It also transcribes 90+ languages, including Urdu, Hindi and Arabic, and handles the language-switching that's normal in real meetings, so you're not limited to English-only rooms.
From transcript to minutes
The transcript is the raw material; the minutes are the point. GetNotes reads the transcript and writes a structured recap — a summary, the decisions, and the action items with owners and deadlines — so a 30-minute meeting reads in under a minute. You already uploaded or recorded once; you don't summarize by hand.
Already have recordings?
If you've been capturing meetings with a voice-memo app, you can upload those audio files to GetNotes and get the same transcript-and-minutes treatment — a quick way to clear a backlog of recordings you never wrote up.
Frequently asked
How can I transcribe an in-person meeting?
Record the meeting from your phone's browser using GetNotes and it transcribes the audio automatically, with speaker labels, then writes structured minutes. There's no app to install and no bot to invite — your phone captures the room and you get a transcript plus a summary, decisions and action items.
Can I transcribe a meeting recording I already have?
Yes. You can upload existing audio files — for example voice-memo recordings — to GetNotes and get a speaker-labelled transcript and AI-written minutes, the same as a live recording.
Is a phone good enough to record a meeting for transcription?
For most meeting rooms, yes. Placing your phone flat in the middle of the table captures the room well enough for accurate transcription. GetNotes' transcription is built to hold up on real-room audio, including cross-talk and accents.