How to Turn Off Notetaker on Google Meet (2026): Gemini and Bots

To turn off Google's own notetaker (Gemini "Take notes for me") during a Google Meet call, open the Take notes for me panel at the top right and stop it; the organizer and anyone inside the host's organization can do this, or only hosts and co-hosts when Host management is on. To stop it for one meeting, open the event in Google Calendar, click Video call options > Meeting records and uncheck Take notes with Gemini; to stop it for every meeting you host, go to meet.google.com > Settings > Meeting records and set Automatic note taking for all future meetings to Off. If the notetaker is a participant tile such as Otter, Fireflies, Read or "[Name]'s AI Notetaker", it is a third-party bot: remove it from the People list (More actions > Remove from the call) and have its owner turn off auto-join in that tool. Every path below was checked against Google's and each vendor's help pages on October 11, 2026.

Table of contents

1. Why is Gemini taking notes in my Google Meet meetings automatically?
2. How do you stop Gemini notes during a Google Meet call?
3. Can a guest from outside the company turn off Gemini notes?
4. How do you turn off Gemini notes for one meeting in Google Calendar?
5. How do you turn off automatic note-taking for all future Google Meet meetings?
6. How does a Google Workspace admin turn off automatic note-taking?
7. What about Gemini notes started from the Meet home screen?
8. How do you remove a third-party notetaker bot from a Google Meet call?
9. Which notetakers show up in Google Meet, and where is each one turned off?
10. How do you stop notetaker bots from joining your Google Meet meetings?
11. How do you stop your own notetaker from auto-joining Google Meet?
12. Does turning off a notetaker delete the notes it already took?
13. How to keep meeting notes without a bot in the call
14. FAQ
15. What does "notetaker" mean in Google Meet?
16. How do I turn off auto transcribe in Google Meet?
17. Why does "[My Name]'s AI Notetaker" join my meetings when I never added it?
18. Can I turn off Gemini notes with a personal Gmail account?
19. Is it rude to remove someone's AI notetaker?

What you see	Which notetaker it is	How to turn it off	Who can do it
A pencil icon on everyone's screen and a notice that notes are being taken; no extra participant	Gemini "Take notes for me", started by someone or by an automatic setting	In the call: stop it from the Take notes for me panel. Next time: Calendar event or Meet settings (below)	Organizer and internal participants; only hosts and co-hosts if Host management is on
Notes start by themselves in every meeting you host, often since late September 2026	Automatic note-taking (your own Meet setting or your admin's default)	meet.google.com > Settings > Meeting records > Off; admins: Admin console > Google Meet > Gemini settings > Automatic note-taking	You for your meetings; your Workspace admin for the default
An "Ask Gemini" consent banner, but no notes document afterwards	Ask Gemini, a private assistant that starts when two people join	Host controls > Gemini section, or Calendar > Video call options > Gemini	Host and co-hosts
A participant tile called Otter, Fireflies Notetaker, Read, tl;dv, Fathom or "[Name]'s AI Notetaker"	A third-party bot connected to someone's calendar	Remove it from People; ask its owner to turn off auto-join	Hosts, co-hosts or internal participants (Meet); often anyone through a chat command (vendor)
A third-party logo at the top right but no participant tile	A vendor using Meet's native recording integration (Read documents this mode)	Click the vendor's logo at the top right and stop sharing	Any participant, per Read

Why is Gemini taking notes in my Google Meet meetings automatically?

Gemini takes notes on its own when automatic note-taking is on for the meeting organizer, and since late September 2026 that is the default for many companies. Google's July 16, 2026 Workspace Updates post announced a new setting that adds Take notes for me to meetings with 3 or more guests, on by default for Business Standard and Business Plus and off by default for Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline Plus and Google AI Pro for Education, with no effect on users before September 21, 2026. Google's admin article Manage automatic note-taking for Meet (updated October 9, 2026) confirms that on or after September 21, 2026, automatic note-taking is on by default for Business Standard and Business Plus meetings with 3 or more guests, host included, and that users can override the default in their own Meet settings.

There are three other common causes. The host turned on Take notes for me once and kept the option Also turn it on for future instances of this meeting, which Google says is pre-selected, so a recurring meeting keeps taking notes. The organizer checked Take notes with Gemini in the Calendar event. Or the admin enabled automatic note-taking for your department. In every case the organizer's settings decide, not yours, when you are a guest.

Gemini never joins as a participant. A Google Product Expert in the Google Meet Help Community pointed out in January 2026 that Take notes for me does not use participant names, so a tile labelled "[Your Name]'s AI Notetaker" is a third-party app, not Gemini (see the bot sections below).

How do you stop Gemini notes during a Google Meet call?

The organizer and any participant from the host's organization can stop Take notes for me at any time during the call; when host controls are on, only the organizer, hosts and co-hosts can. Google describes this as a way to keep confidential or sensitive parts of the discussion out of the summary. On a computer:

1. At the top right of the meeting screen, click the Take notes for me icon (the pencil that appears on every participant's screen while notes run). You can also reach it from Meeting tools.
2. Choose Stop (or Pause, where offered) and confirm with Stop taking notes.
3. To restart later, click Take notes for me again and Start taking notes.

Stopping does not erase what was already captured. Notes start when someone starts them and are not retroactive, per Google's admin article on AI note-taking, so content from before you clicked Stop can still appear in the document the organizer receives. If something sensitive was said before you stopped the notes, ask the organizer to edit or delete that part of the notes document afterwards.

Can a guest from outside the company turn off Gemini notes?

Usually not. Google's help article says the organizer and participants internal to the host's organization can start or stop notes, so an external guest cannot stop them from the Meet controls. An external guest can ask the host in chat to stop the notes, ask to be left off the notes sharing list, or leave the call. If the host's admin has turned on explicit consent (an option in Admin console > Google Meet > Meet safety settings, off by default), each participant on web or mobile sees a consent prompt with Join, Continue or Leave before notes, recording or transcription run, per Google's participant consent article. Phone dial-in and Meet hardware participants are automatically consented under that setting.

Participants are told when Gemini takes notes: Google states that Meet informs all participants and shows the pencil icon on everyone's screen. Who receives the notes depends on the host's Send notes to choice (all invited guests, invited guests in the organization, or hosts and co-hosts only), counted from the Calendar invite, not from who attended.

How do you turn off Gemini notes for one meeting in Google Calendar?

The organizer turns notes off for a single meeting, or a recurring series, in the Calendar event's video call options. The steps come from Google's articles Take notes for me in Google Meet and Calendar & Meet settings for Take notes for me:

1. On a computer, open Google Calendar and click the event.
2. Click Edit event.
3. Click Video call options (the gear next to the Google Meet link).
4. In the left column, click Meeting records.
5. Uncheck Take notes with Gemini. The same section holds the automatic recording and transcript checkboxes; uncheck those too if you want no meeting records at all.
6. Save the event. For a recurring event, make sure the change applies to the following events, not only one date.

Change the setting before the meeting starts. Google's settings article notes that once someone has already joined the Meet call, these settings can no longer be changed for that session, so at that point stop the notes from inside the call instead.

How do you turn off automatic note-taking for all future Google Meet meetings?

Each host can switch automatic note-taking off for every meeting they host in Meet's own settings, even if the admin default is on. Google's Calendar & Meet settings article gives these steps:

1. On a computer, go to meet.google.com.
2. At the top right, click Settings.
3. In the left column, click Meeting records.
4. Under Automatic note taking for all future meetings, select Off. The other two options are For all scheduled meetings I host and For all scheduled meetings I host with 3+ guests.
5. Click Save.

This setting only covers meetings you organize; in other people's meetings their setting applies. Recurring meetings set up with "Also turn it on for future instances" may need the Calendar step above as well.

How does a Google Workspace admin turn off automatic note-taking?

Admins control Gemini notes in the Google Admin console under Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet, with the Google Meet administrator privilege. Each setting can be applied to the whole organization, an organizational unit or a configuration group, and changes can take up to 24 hours. The table lists the settings as named in Google's admin articles updated October 9, 2026.

Goal	Admin console path (Google Meet settings)	Effect
Stop notes starting automatically	Gemini settings > Automatic note-taking > Off	No default auto-start; users can still turn it on in their own Meet settings (source)
Turn Gemini notes off completely	Gemini settings > Gemini note-taking > uncheck Let people use Gemini note-taking in meetings	Users in that unit cannot use Take notes for me in meetings they organize (source)
Limit who gets the notes	Gemini settings > Gemini notes sharing > Default sharing setting for Gemini notes	Choose all invited guests, invited guests in your organization (default) or hosts and co-hosts; optionally stop hosts from changing it
Require consent before notes run	Meet safety settings > Take Notes with Gemini consent > Require explicit consent	Web and mobile participants must agree; the "Streaming session consent denial action" decides whether a participant who declines can quickly stop the notes or must leave (source)

Two caveats for admins. Google's older article Choose automatic meeting artifact settings (same update date) describes a different location, Meet video settings > Automatic note-taking > Gemini takes notes by default, so check both places in your console. And many guides, including Community answers from 2025, still call the main toggle "Google AI note-taking"; the current name in Google's admin article is Gemini note-taking.

What about Gemini notes started from the Meet home screen?

Take notes for me can now run outside a Meet video call, on one person's device. Google's April 2026 Workspace announcement says that for in-person meetings, or calls hosted on Zoom or Teams, you tap Take notes for me on the Google Meet home screen and Gemini captures a summary and action items in a Google Doc. Google's in-person notes article says the device is set nearby, the person who started it can select Pause or Stop (then Stop taking notes), and the notes go to the Drive folder of whoever turned it on.

In this mode only the person whose phone or laptop is listening can stop it. Google's in-person article describes no notice to the other people in the room or on the Zoom or Teams call, so if you suspect it is running, ask; if you use it, tell everyone first.

How do you remove a third-party notetaker bot from a Google Meet call?

A notetaker bot in Google Meet is a normal participant, so you remove it the same way as a person. Google's add or remove people article says that with Host management on, only a host or co-host can remove another participant; with Host management off, anyone from the meeting organizer's domain can. On a computer:

1. At the bottom right, click Show everyone (the People panel).
2. Next to the bot, click More actions.
3. Select Remove from the call.
4. In the box that opens, choose Remove, or also Block so it cannot rejoin this meeting.

If the bot's tile is visible in the grid, you can also hover over it and click More options > Remove from the call. Google notes that Block only applies to the current meeting code; the same bot can join your other meetings, and next week's occurrence of a recurring meeting, if its owner still has auto-join on.

Which notetakers show up in Google Meet, and where is each one turned off?

Each vendor offers its own way to stop its bot, and some work for any participant. The table maps five common notetakers, checked on each vendor's help center on October 11, 2026.

Notetaker	What any participant can do in the call	Where the owner turns off auto-join	Official help
Otter	Type stop otter in the meeting chat (no Otter account needed); removes all Otter Notetakers in the call	Integrations > Meetings tab > Default auto-join settings > Meetings I manually select; events toggled one by one keep their own setting	Otter Help
Fireflies	Type /ff leave in the chat (Fireflies does not say whether every participant can); removed within 3 minutes means no transcript or notes	Settings > Recording & Privacy > turn off Auto-record meetings, or set Auto-join calendar meetings to "Only when I invite [email protected]"	Fireflies guide
Read (agent)	Usually asks to be admitted (deny it); type Read stop (leaves, keeps a report) or Opt out (leaves, deletes the data)	Account Settings > Meeting Recording > Auto-Join Preferences > turn off Auto-join meetings; per meeting, toggle off "Add Read?" in Read's Calendar	Read Help Center
Read (Meet native recording)	No tile and no chat commands; click the Read AI logo at the top right > Stop sharing, or open Read from the apps grid and choose Opt out	Same Read settings as above	Read auto-join options
tl;dv	Deny the bot entry when the meeting starts	Personal preferences > Automations > Auto-record calendar events > No meetings, or turn recording off for one event in the calendar view	tl;dv Help
Fathom	No chat command documented; ask the host to remove it or its owner to stop recording	Settings page, first drop-down (Auto-Record) > No Meetings	Fathom Help

Chat commands are vendor features, not Google Meet features. If a bot ignores them and you are not a host, message the host, or the person who brought it (Read's chat notice names the user who invited it).

How do you stop notetaker bots from joining your Google Meet meetings?

Google Meet has no single "block all AI notetakers" switch for hosts, but bots must usually knock, and the meeting access settings decide who has to knock. Google's Meet productivity guide lists these settings under Calendar > Video call options, or Host controls (bottom right) in a meeting:

Setting	What it does against bots	Limit
Meeting access type: Trusted	Only people in your organization and external guests on the Calendar invite join without knocking; a bot has to ask, and you deny it	Guests on the Calendar invite skip knocking; if a bot's address was added to the invite, it may get in too (Google does not document this case)
Meeting access type: Restricted	Only Calendar invitees and people a host invites from the meeting join without knocking	Internal colleagues not on the invite have to knock too
Uncheck Anyone with the meeting link can ask to join	For Trusted and Restricted meetings, everyone else is declined automatically, so bots cannot even knock	Late human guests not on the invite are declined too
Host management on	Only hosts and co-hosts accept knocks and remove participants (host controls)	Off by default for Calendar events, depending on your admin

Since spring 2026 (rollout started March 24), Google's safeguarded guest admit flow also puts some join requests into a second queue whose default action is to deny entry; Google does not say which connections land there. Notetaker vendors such as Metaview report that their bots now appear in that queue with a "potential risks" label, so a host who does nothing keeps them out.

Workspace admins have one more option: blocking a notetaker app from Google data. In Admin console > Security > Access and data control > API controls > Manage Third-Party App Access, an admin can set an app to Blocked, per Google's app access article. That stops the app from reading your users' calendars, which is how most bots know when to join, but it does not stop a bot brought by an external guest whose calendar lives elsewhere.

How do you stop your own notetaker from auto-joining Google Meet?

Your own notetaker keeps joining because it reads your connected calendar, so the fix is in the tool, not in Meet. Removing it from one call does not stop the next event. Work through these steps:

1. Turn off auto-join in the tool, using the setting in the table above, then check your upcoming events: Otter says events you toggled one by one keep their own setting.
2. Remove the tool's access to your Google Account. Go to your Google Account's linked apps page, select Access to your Google Account, choose the app, click See details, then Remove access, per Google's linked apps article. Without calendar access, the app no longer sees new meetings.
3. Delete the account if you no longer use it. Read states that once you delete your Read account or change its auto-join settings, Read cannot join from that account, and that if it still joins, it is coming from someone else's account.

Does turning off a notetaker delete the notes it already took?

No: turning off or removing a notetaker stops new capture, but what it already produced stays with its owner. A Gemini notes document stays in the organizer's Drive "Google Meet" folder and follows the organization's Meet retention policy, so only the organizer (or the admin's retention rules) can delete it. Among bots, Read's Opt out command deletes the data it measured, and Fireflies creates no transcript if it is removed within the first 3 minutes. For anything else, ask the bot's owner to delete the recording and summary from their account.

How to keep meeting notes without a bot in the call

Many people turn off notetakers because a bot tile or an automatic Gemini document feels intrusive, not because they object to notes. A bot-free tool is an option in that case. NoteMeeting transcribes and summarizes Google Meet calls through a Chrome extension that runs in your own browser, so no bot joins the meeting and no participant tile appears. NoteMeeting does not store your audio on its servers; you download the transcript and recap yourself. Limits: it works in Chrome on a computer (Google Meet, Zoom in the browser, Teams on the web), it does not record video, and the free trial covers 1 hour of audio for transcript and summary before a paid plan (see NoteMeeting pricing).

No bot does not mean no consent. Because nothing in the participant list shows that NoteMeeting is running, tell the other participants at the start that you are taking AI notes, the same way you would announce a recording, and follow your company's rules for confidential meetings. If that approach fits your next call, install the NoteMeeting extension and use the 1-hour free trial.

FAQ

What does "notetaker" mean in Google Meet?

In Google Meet, "notetaker" can mean Google's own Gemini feature Take notes for me, which writes a notes document for the organizer without joining as a participant, or a third-party bot such as Otter, Fireflies or Read that joins as a participant and records the call. The way to turn it off depends on which one it is; the table at the top of this page maps what you see to the right fix.

How do I turn off auto transcribe in Google Meet?

Open the Calendar event, click Video call options > Meeting records and uncheck the transcript option, or stop the transcript from Meeting tools during the call. Admins control the default under Meet video settings > Automatic transcription. Our guide to Google Meet transcripts covers starting, stopping and finding transcripts in detail.

Why does "[My Name]'s AI Notetaker" join my meetings when I never added it?

A participant with that name is a third-party app, not Gemini, which never appears as a participant. Usually it is an app you or your company connected to your calendar. Turn off its auto-join, remove its access on your Google Account linked apps page, and ask your admin whether the company deployed it.

Can I turn off Gemini notes with a personal Gmail account?

Take notes for me is available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers for meetings they host, according to Google's June 29, 2026 announcement, and Google's settings article applies to "an eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan". If you host the meeting, stop it in the call; Google's settings article does not separate personal and work accounts for the Calendar and Meet settings, so check whether Meeting records appears for your account. If someone else hosts, their settings apply and you can only ask them.

Is it rude to remove someone's AI notetaker?

Not if you say why. Many hosts state at the start that recordings and AI notetakers are not used in confidential meetings, then remove any bot that joins. Read asks its own users to tell participants they are recording, and Otter lets any participant remove its bot with a chat command, so vendors expect this to happen. For Gemini notes, ask the host to stop them rather than leaving without a word.

Using Zoom as well? The same problem has different fixes there: see how to remove a notetaker from Zoom. If you do want Gemini notes in some meetings, our guide to turning on Google Meet Take notes for me covers plans, setup and where the notes are saved.