Best APIs for recording Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet meetings

15 min read

Key takeaways:

  • With billions of meeting minutes on Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet, SaaS products unlock the most value integrating across platforms to deliver meeting features.
  • Zoom, Teams, and Meet have distinct APIs, recording rules, and user permissions. Supporting all three requires deep knowledge and maintenance of each ecosystem.
  • Engineering teams so use third-party APIs for cross-platform recordings so they can focus on UX and features instead of bot orchestration, compliance, and infrastructure.

Meetings are pretty old school. 

It didn’t matter if you were in the agora of ancient Greece, sitting in the first town hall meetings of the 16th century, or fumbling with a mute button in front of your computer screen. The format and goal of a meeting hasn’t changed much. 

We bring up an agenda, discuss it, and ideally, come to a conclusion. But more often than not, we spend too much time discussing and leave our meetings bloated with information instead of action items. 

This is a problem that persists even more so with the convenience of meeting platforms. 

Five years ago, developers were doubling down on tools to improve the meeting experience. But today, we’re seeing a shift in value toward using AI to capture and elevate what happens after those meetings. 

How can we keep up with streams of information as they come? How can we capture and remember what matters? 

If you’re building a product to help people collaborate during and after meetings, then you’ll want to know how to capture audio and video data from popular platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. This guide breaks down what developers need to know when selecting and implementing APIs for cross-platform recordings. 

Why record meetings in Zoom, Teams, and Meet?

Hundreds of millions of users hold virtual meetings on platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Meet daily. Zoom data reports that the platform hosts 3.3 billion minutes of meetings annually.

A product that records meetings on these popular platforms will help teams capture, preserve shared context, extract meaning, and make asynchronous collaboration long after any meeting is done. 

Shifting your strategy toward meeting recordings and automation unlocks new ways SaaS platforms can deliver value across industries.. For example: 

  • Sales: Record and summarize sales discovery calls to capture key insights and automatically update CRM records.
  • Recruiting: Record candidate interviews and surface key takeaways from transcripts for improved collaborative decision-making.
  • Healthcare: Transcribe patient interactions to speed up note-taking and ensure records meet medical compliance standards.
  • Auditing: Keep full transcripts of legal or financial meetings to maintain a compliant accurate paper trail.
  • Training: Record user interviews or internal training sessions so teams can extract key insights and build better knowledge bases.

But integrating with meeting recorders is hard

Each meeting platform has its own APIs and requirements for retrieving meeting recordings and meeting transcriptions

Take Zoom, for example. 

Developers trying to build AI agents that join meetings, transcribe conversations, and respond in real time quickly hit a wall. Zoom doesn’t give you direct access to live audio through its API, and recording requires strict consent flows that are easy to misconfigure. Even triggering a simple recording bot means navigating OAuth scopes and host presence rules.

And Zoom isn’t the only challenge. Developers building cross-platform recording features run into platform-specific limitations like:

  • Permissions management: Zoom, Teams, and Meet handle host control, OAuth scopes, and participant consent workflows differently. Not getting it right causes recordings to fail.
  • Automation gaps: Starting recordings at the right time automatically means integrating with calendars and orchestrating bots across these different events even if they’re changed or moved.
  • Limited native support: Google Meet’s recording features, for example, are only available on select Workspace plans. You can build workarounds to solve this, but they’re prone to breaking. 
  • Compliance and consent: Developers must manage building each platform’s consent notifications and staying compliant with data storage rules and regulatory requirements for certain industries and organizations. 

Why a cross-platform API makes it easier 

People have their own preferences for meeting platforms, influenced by factors like the devices they use, the teams they work with, and the software stack they operate. You want your product to be able to deliver a quality meeting assistance experience that meets users where they are. 

Using a unified third-party API means:

  • One integration to record meetings across Zoom, Teams, and Meet.
  • Less platform-specific edge cases to maintain. 
  • Programmatic control over when and how meetings are recorded.
  • Reliable meeting data to deploy AI-enhanced features like transcription, speaker diarization, and summaries.
  • Faster time to market for your core product features — without sacrificing security, reliability, or usability.

Platform-specific recording considerations and tips

Before you start building bots specifically for recording Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet meetings, here are a few things to keep in mind for each platform.

Zoom

Recording requirements Developers must configure flows that get explicit participant consent.

Bots must either:
  • Trigger a host-approved consent dialog in-meeting.
  • Use OAuth-based permissions to auto-record.
API support
  • Native APIs available for accessing cloud recordings.
  • No support for live media ingestion. You’ll need to build your own meeting bot infrastructure with a Zoom Meeting SDK or a third-party API for real-time media.
Challenges
  • Cloud Recording API retrieves post-meeting files only.
  • Manual OAuth configuration and webhook delays.
  • Accessing raw audio/video streams (e.g., I420 video frames, PCM 16LE audio) requires encoding/decoding expertise.
Developer tips For bots that need to join Zoom meetings and access raw audio/video, use the Zoom Meeting SDK. The Linux version works well in Docker.

You’ll get direct media access, but you’ll need to manage encoding and scaling on your own.

Microsoft Teams

Recording requirements Meeting recording and transcription features are gated by organizational policies. Consent flows must align with regulations.
API support
  • APIs available through Microsoft Graph.
  • No direct support for live meeting recordings or real-time media access.
Challenges
  • Graph API lacks real-time media support.
  • Unclear documentation, limited examples, and frequent permission and rate-limit errors.
  • Meeting Teams’ enterprise-grade security standards (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR) adds overhead.
Developer tips Build bots using the Microsoft Real-time Media Platform for access to live streams.

Google Meet

Recording requirements
  • Recording limited to select Google Workspace plans (e.g., Business Standard+, Enterprise).
  • Users must be on eligible plans to initiate or access recordings.
API support No dedicated API for recording or retrieving media.
Challenges
  • No native API for recording or media access.
  • Mapping calendar events to actual meetings is unreliable.
Developer tips
  • Use third-party APIs like the Nylas Notetaker to sync meeting bots with Google Calendar events.
  • Validate host plan eligibility before triggering recordings.

Top APIs for cross-platform recording

Let’s look at the APIs that are simplifying the complexities of cross-platform recording. These solutions provide developer-friendly tools to help you build on meeting data without having to worry about developing your own meeting bot infrastructure

Recall.ai

Recall.ai is an API that connects to prebuilt meeting bots for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. It handles the heavy lifting of joining meetings, capturing audio and video, and piping that data back to your app in real time or post-call. The platform also supports additional platforms like Slack Huddle and Cisco Webex. 

Features

  • Real-time transcription and speaker diarization
  • Audio and video capture via a single endpoint
  • Secure recording storage

Best for: Collaboration tools, internal analytics platforms, and AI assistants that need to passively capture and process meetings across platforms. Use cases include coaching, training, and customer support QA.

What’s in the docs?

  • API reference: Covers endpoints to start bots, stream audio, and fetch transcripts across Zoom, Teams, and Meet.
  • Webhook support: Setup for meeting start/stop and transcript availability.
  • Platform-specific best practices: Guidelines for handling Zoom consent, Google Meet limitations, and Teams-specific behaviors.

Fireflies.ai 

Fireflies.ai API gives developers access to Fireflies’ transcription engine and meeting intelligence tools. Rather than using the API to orchestrate bots, developers upload audio files directly and use the API to generate transcripts, extract insights, and manage user-level data. This makes it more suited for post-meeting processing than live bot interactions.The API works with any audio source, but speaker labeling support is strongest with Zoom and Google Meet.

Features

  • Upload audio files to generate transcripts
  • Retrieve full transcripts, keywords, and structured insights from past meetings
  • Custom NLP tagging for next steps, deadlines, sentiment, and more
  • Speaker labeling 

Best for: Apps focused on building searchable meeting archives or generating structured insights for coaching, analytics, or CRM enrichment.

What’s in the docs?

  • API reference: GraphQL schema for uploading audio, retrieving transcript data, and managing users.
  • Authentication guide: Token-based access for secure API interaction
  • Transcript management: Delete, modify, or filter stored meetings.
  • Custom NLP insights: Pull transcript highlights by topic category (e.g., sentiment, next steps).

Nylas

Nylas Notetaker goes beyond meeting recordings and transcripts. It’s the only meeting recording API in this list that already has integrations with calendar providers, making it ideal for developers that need reliable calendar synchronization in their products — like CRMs, ATSs, sales tools, or scheduling platforms. The Notetaker API has native support for Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. By being a unified API with native integrations for meetings and calendars, developers can work fewer edge cases and better scheduling logic.

Features

  • Native calendar integration with Google, Microsoft, and more
  • Auto-join support for Zoom, Teams, and Meet
  • Transcription and speaker labeling
    Unified APIs for scheduling, recording, and meeting intelligence

Best for: Platforms where calendar, meeting, and communication data all intersect. If you’re building tools that depend on context-rich communication — like customer relationship management, lead enrichment, hiring coordination, or customer follow-up — Nylas gives you the most integrated, flexible foundation.

What’s in the docs?

  • API reference: Endpoints for creating meeting bots, scheduling with calendar events, and retrieving transcripts.
  • Authentication guide: OAuth 2.0 + grant ID flow for secure multi-user and multi-tenant use.
  • Quickstarts and SDKs: Developer guides for recording automation, integrating with AI tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor.
  • Webhook support: Real-time triggers for join, end, and transcript readiness.
  • Platform-specific guidance: Built-in calendar mapping and meeting logic to reduce platform-specific hacks.

How to use the Nylas API for cross-platform meeting recordings

This tutorial will walk you through how to integrate with the Nylas Notetaker so your app can record meetings across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. You’ll need:

  • Nylas account & API credentials: If you don’t have one already, sign up for a Nylas developer account for free.
  • A meeting link: Have a Zoom, Google Meet, or other compatible meeting URL handy for testing.

Step 1: Set up your environment

In your development environment, set an environment variable for your Nylas API key (you can get this from the Nylas dashboard).

Replace <YOUR_NYLAS_API_KEY> with the actual key from your Nylas dashboard. You’ll also reference your grantId (the connected account’s grant ID) in API calls. 

# Set environment variables for reuse
export NYLAS_API_KEY="<YOUR_NYLAS_API_KEY>" 

Before you can schedule or manage a Notetaker, you’ll need a grantId. This represents a connected user account and is required for making authenticated API calls on their behalf.

If you’re building an app where users connect their own Google or Microsoft accounts, use the OAuth 2.0 flow to generate this grant. You can check out our docs and use the Nylas SDKs for this.

Step 2: Join and record a meeting

There are a few ways to get a Nylas Notetaker to join meetings:

  • On-demand: You invite the Notetaker to an ongoing meeting without specifying a start time. The Notetaker will attempt to join right away.
  • Scheduled join: You schedule the Notetaker to join a future meeting at a specified time by providing the meeting start time. 
  • Calendar sync: The best consumer experience for your product is built on top of this functionality. 

If you’re not setting up a calendar sync, you’ll invite the Notetaker by creating a Notetaker instance for a given meeting.  To invite the bot, make a POST request with the meeting information. You’ll need to provide the meeting’s meeting_link. Here’s an example:

Join and record a meeting

	const Nylas = require("nylas");
const nylas = new Nylas({
  apiKey: "{NYLAS_API_KEY}",
});
 
async function createNotetaker() {
  const response = await nylas.notetakers.create({
    identifier: "{EMAIL}",
    requestBody: {
      meetingLink: "{MEETING_LINK}",
      name: "My Notetaker",
    },
  });
 
  console.log("Notetaker created:", response);
}
 
createNotetaker();

Step 3: Automate meeting recordings by syncing with a calendar

To set up a calendar sync with the Nylas Notetaker, make a PUT request to update a specific calendar’s settings using the /v3/grants/<NYLAS_GRANT_ID>/calendars/<CALENDAR_ID> endpoint.

  • <CALENDAR_ID>: The ID of the calendar you want to apply these rules to. You can get calendar IDs using the Nylas Calendar API.

In the request body, you define the notetaker configuration, including rules like event_selection (e.g., “internal,” “external” meetings) and participant_filter (e.g., minimum/maximum number of attendees).

Syncing with calendar events

const Nylas = require("nylas");
const nylas = new Nylas({
  apiKey: "{NYLAS_API_KEY}",
});
 
async function createNotetaker() {
  const response = await nylas.notetakers.create({
    identifier: "{GRANT_ID}",
    requestBody: {
      meetingLink: "{MEETING_LINK}",
      name: "My Notetaker",
    },
  });
 
  console.log("Notetaker created:", response);
}
 
createNotetaker();

Step 4: Get recordings and transcriptions

Once your meeting is done, the Notetaker will leave and start processing your recording to generate a transcription. You can get these files…

1. In real-time via webhook notifications: In the Nylas dashboard or via API, you need to register a webhook URL (an endpoint on your server) and specify the events you would like to receive (Notetaker supports a few events). If you’ve subscribed to the notetaker.media webhook event, Nylas will send a notification to your webhook URL when the transcription and recording are ready. The webhook payload will include temporary URLs for the video recording and the transcription file.

2. On-demand via API request: Access the recording and transcript by making a GET request to the Notetaker media endpoint. This request will return JSON containing URLs for the recording and transcript.

Get meeting recordings and transcriptions

const Nylas = require("nylas");
const nylas = new Nylas({
  apiKey: "{NYLAS_API_KEY}",
});
 
async function listNotetakers() {
  const response = await nylas.notetakers.list({
    identifier: "{GRANT_ID}",
  });
 
  console.log("Notetakers:", response.data);
}
 
listNotetakers();

What developers need to know about meeting bots 

If you’re competing in a saturated market, rushing through the build of a feature isn’t an option. User-friendly meeting intelligence isn’t just about starting a recording. Recordings need to be handled in a secure environment and they need to be timely, easy to work with, and feasible at scale (because meetings are not a rare occasion). Most product teams hit their first set of roadblocks after building a meeting bot because…

Keep these top of mind before going live with a cross-platform meeting bot: 

Understand each platform’s compliance requirements

Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet each enforce unique policies around recording, consent, and organization-level approvals. Bots must trigger native consent dialogs or validate permissions ahead of time to avoid legal and security risks.

Have a secure storage environment for recordings

Meeting recordings often contain PII, customer information, and sensitive internal conversations. You need to store media files using encrypted, access-controlled services like AWS S3. But beyond that, you need secure key management, access controls, token protection, OAuth handling, and audit logs to avoid client-side vulnerabilities. 

Test integrations at scale

Running full integration tests on live meetings can trigger API rate limits, cloud storage fees, and recording usage charges. You can simulate joins with dummy meeting URLs to catch integration errors and edge cases with each platform before production.

Keep within API rate limits

Each platform has API rate limits that are easy to hit when bots are joining meetings in bulk or syncing with calendars. You’ll want to make sure your app implements appropriate retry logic to stay within these thresholds without disrupting the end-user experience.

Build trust with your user experience

Use your UX to inform customers and make them feel secure. Display clear indicators when a bot joins and starts recording, provide status updates, and include confirmation prompts in your app so users are always in control of the recording process.

Start building today

Having strong integrations is critical for delivering value in any SaaS platform built on communications data. But it also takes time to get these foundations right. That’s why many teams rely on API providers to standardize and offload the work around these structural components

The Nylas Notetaker helps SaaS applications look beyond basic meeting recording. Developers can build tightly integrated communication platforms with a secure and reliable environment for email, calendar, and cross-platform meeting data. 

Contact our team to learn how you can use our meeting recorder API to build your app’s next meeting feature.

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