How to Transcribe Zoom Meetings & Create Automatic Minutes

Meeting minutes are one of those tasks that everyone agrees is important and nobody wants to do. You are trying to participate in the conversation while simultaneously writing notes, and the result is usually incomplete, disorganised, and filed somewhere nobody ever looks.

AI transcription changes this completely. Record your meeting, transcribe it in 60 seconds, use AI to extract the key points. Here is the exact workflow.

How to Record Your Zoom Meeting

Zoom offers two recording options: local (saves to your computer) and cloud (saves to Zoom cloud, available on paid plans).

Local Recording (Free)

1. Start your Zoom meeting
2. Click Record in the bottom toolbar
3. Select Record on this Computer
4. The recording indicator appears at the top left
5. When the meeting ends, Zoom automatically processes and saves the recording
6. Find it at: Documents → Zoom → [Date] Meeting Name

Zoom saves local recordings as both an MP4 (video) and M4A (audio only) file. For transcription, use the M4A audio file — it is smaller and transcribes faster.

Cloud Recording (Paid)

If you are on a Zoom paid plan, cloud recordings appear in your Zoom web portal under Recordings. Download the audio file from there.

Exporting the Audio

After your Zoom meeting, you will have an M4A audio file. This is ready to upload directly — no conversion needed. If you only have the MP4 video file, you can either:

• Use the M4A that Zoom usually creates alongside the MP4
• Extract audio using a free tool like Audacity (free, open source)
• Use VLC Media Player: Media → Convert/Save → Add file → Convert to MP3

Transcribing the Meeting

1. Go to boloaurlikho.com
2. Upload the M4A audio file from your Zoom folder
3. Enable Timestamps — this is essential for meeting minutes so you can reference when things were said
4. Enable AI Summary — this will automatically extract key decisions and action points
5. Click Transcribe Now

A 1-hour meeting will transcribe in 2-3 minutes. The result is a complete, word-for-word transcript with timestamps and an AI-generated summary of key points.

Turning Transcript into Meeting Minutes

The AI Summary from Bolo Aur Likho gives you a starting point. Here is how to turn it into proper meeting minutes:

Standard Meeting Minutes Format

1. Header — Meeting name, date, attendees, facilitator
2. Agenda Items — What was discussed (use the AI Summary key points)
3. Decisions Made — Search the transcript for "we decided", "agreed to", "will go with"
4. Action Items — Search for "will do", "to action", "responsible for", "by [date]"
5. Next Meeting — Date and agenda if discussed

The full transcript serves as a reference document. The formatted minutes above are what you distribute to attendees.

Sharing Your Minutes

Best practices for sharing meeting transcripts and minutes:

• Slack/Teams — Paste the AI Summary directly into the meeting channel immediately after the call
• Email — Send the formatted minutes (not the full transcript) to all attendees within 24 hours
• Notion/Confluence — Create a meeting notes database and paste the full transcript for searchability
• Google Drive — Store the full transcript as a text file with a clear naming convention: YYYY-MM-DD Team Meeting

The full transcript is invaluable for resolving future disagreements about what was actually agreed. "We said we would do X by Friday" disputes disappear when you have a searchable word-for-word record.