Zoom Captions and Transcription

Owned by Peter Means
Last updated: Aug 22, 2020 by DaSp
2 min read

Zoom will caption a recorded session in a paid account. These captions will be visible in the recorded finished product but not during the live session.

Make sure captioning is on

  1. Sign into the Zoom web portal and go to Account Settings.

  2. Go to the Cloud recording option on the Recording tab and verify that the setting is enabled.

  3. If the setting is disabled, click the Status toggle to enable it. If a verification dialog displays, choose Turn On to verify the change.

  4. In the Advanced cloud recording settings, click the Audio Transcript checkbox to enable it (if it’s not checked), then click Save to confirm the change.


Record your session

Start your Zoom session as usual 

  1. Click the record button in the bottom control bar to start recording. 

  2. Click the record button again to stop recording

  3. End the session when finished


Editing and Viewing the Audio Transcript

  1. You will receive two emails when your video is ready. Look for the one with the subject beginning with “Audio Transcript for the recording . . .”

  2. Open the “Audio Transcript . . .”  email

  3. Click on the second link in the email - under “to share the recording . . .”

Note:Video will open in your browser

Viewing the Video and Transcript

Click the “CC” button in the lower right corner of the video window and click the play button. The video will play with the transcript displayed in the video.

Editing the Transcript

The transcript will likely not be perfect. Each section of the transcripted text will be displayed on the right hand side of the screen.

  1. Hover your mouse on the extreme right edge of the text section to edit

  2. Click the black pencil icon that appears - this can be tricky to click

  3. Edit the text to correct the transcript

  4. Click the “Save” button at the bottom of the text block

  5. Repeat for other text blocks


Share the Transcripted Video

Copy the same second link in the same email under the title “To share the recording with the integrated audio transcript:” 

  1. Right click the link, choose copy link

  2. Share this link any way you like - email, Post it in Canvas etc.


NOTE: You can edit the transcript as the owner. Students and others will not have the edit option.

Download the Files (If needed)

In the same email under the title “To share the recording with the integrated audio transcript:”, Click the first link under “These files are available to view, download, and edit on the recording detail page:”. Your browser will open.

Download Transcript as a Text File by hovering over the Audio Transcript file and click the Download arrow button. 

Do the same to download the video or just the audio file displayed on the screen

You can download all three files by clicking the button “Download (3 Files)”

NOTE: if you start and stop recording during the session you will have multiple (more than 3) files.