# Fathom Transcription and Recording: Modes, Languages, Downloads > How Fathom records and transcribes calls: four capture modes, 38 transcript languages, MP4-only downloads, copy-only transcripts and the hard limits. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/fathom-transcription — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_ --- Fathom records a Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call, writes a transcript with each speaker named, and turns it into an AI summary you can search, clip and share. **Recordings, transcription, storage and downloads are unlimited on every plan**, Free included, and Free costs $0 with no time limit.[1] Transcripts cover 38 languages. For each meeting, you choose how Fathom listens: through its visible Notetaker bot (audio and video), or bot-free from the Mac desktop app (beta) as audio only or a transcript with no recording kept. Two limits shape everything after the call. Transcripts can't be saved as a file, only copied. And there are no uploads: Fathom works on live calls. **38** — Transcript languages on every plan, Free included (20 on bot-free capture) - **4** — Capture modes per meeting in the Fathom 3.0 Mac app - **MP4** — Only recording download format; transcripts are copy-only - **250** — Attendee cap for Fathom's bot on Zoom meetings ## Pick a capture mode before the call starts Fathom 3.0 gives every meeting one of **four capture modes**: Capture Off; Transcript Only, which is bot-free and saves no recording, just a transcript and an AI summary; Audio Only, which is bot-free and stores audio locally without video; and Audio and Video, which sends the bot.[2] You set a default, then override it for a single upcoming meeting from the app tray. A sensitive one-on-one can run as Transcript Only while your weekly demo keeps full video. Pick deliberately. The bot route is the one most people meet first. The Fathom Notetaker joins the call, captures video, audio and a searchable transcript, and sits in the participant list under your name. It joins a calendar event only when the event has at least one attendee and a Zoom, Teams or Meet link, and it reads only your primary connected calendar. The Auto-record setting covers all meetings, external ones, internal ones, or none. Renaming the bot and removing the in-meeting banner start at Premium. The bot stays visible regardless. Bot-free capture is a beta for the Mac only, rolled out in phases, and it needs macOS 14.2 or newer, the latest desktop app and a meeting language among the 20 it supports. Windows users stay on the bot, and Teams calls are recorded by the Notetaker bot; our [desktop app guide](/articles/fathom-desktop-app) covers eligibility in detail. Whichever route you take, the Terms put consent on you: every participant should agree before you record. Fathom itself says bot-free tools remove the bot from view, not the duty to tell people. > 💡 **Use Transcript Only for sensitive calls:** On the Fathom 3.0 Mac desktop app (bot-free beta), Transcript Only gives a transcript and AI summary with no recording saved, so nothing can be played back, clipped or downloaded later. > ⚠ **Hiding the banner does not hide the bot:** Removing Fathom's in-meeting banner (from Premium) still leaves the Notetaker bot visible in the participant list. ## What waits in your library once the call ends Every captured meeting produces a transcript with speaker attribution, and that attribution carries over to bot-free capture. On the new Mac desktop app, a live summary updates while people talk, and the full transcript and summary are ready when the call ends. The previous bot-based experience works only afterward: it processes the recording, then delivers both. Summary depth depends on your plan. On Free, advanced AI summaries cover your first 5 calls each month; after that, calls are still recorded, transcribed and summarized with the General/Enhanced template. AI action items and AI follow-up emails start at Premium, and Ask Fathom is available on Free only in limited form, with no published quota. Our [breakdown of the Free plan](/articles/is-fathom-free) walks through what else changes when you pay. Highlights depend on the capture route. With the bot-based desktop app you can mark highlights and bookmarks during the call. **On bot-free capture, in-meeting highlights are not available**: you add them afterward from the transcript, and as of November 2026, Fathom calls post-meeting clip creation there coming soon. Clips and playlists of your own meetings come with every plan. Team playlists and folders for full calls start at Team; folders default to Private and take no bulk adds. Highlight clips sent to Slack go to public channels only. They cannot be deleted afterward. ## Languages: 38 for transcripts, a shorter list for summaries Transcription runs in **38 languages on every plan**, Free included; Fathom's help names English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Korean and Hindi among them.[3] Summaries are narrower. Fathom's overview lists seven languages it transcribes and summarizes natively (English, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, German and Portuguese) and ties that list to the Premium and Team plans. Check the plan before you promise a Dutch summary to a client. Translated summaries are also a Premium and Team feature. A call detected in Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian or Dutch gets an automatically translated summary, and on team plans each user can set the default post-call summary language to Auto or one of the seven. Ask Fathom can translate into 29 additional languages. Two narrower lists apply elsewhere. Bot-free capture supports English plus 19 others, 20 in total as of October 2026, and API summaries always come back in English. If translated summaries matter, the plan math is short. Premium is the cheapest paid plan for one person at $16 per user per month billed annually, or $20 per user per month billed monthly. Team costs $15 per user per month billed annually, or $19 per user per month billed monthly, with a 2-user minimum. So a solo user who picks Team still pays for two seats. ## Fixing names, trimming and teaching it your jargon When Fathom can't match you to a participant, it shows a name picker. Skip it, and the meeting is still recorded but not tied to the right user in the transcript. In-person recordings from the iPhone app can be weaker here: Fathom warns that speaker naming may be limited when a conference room joins remote attendees. Hybrid rooms need checking. Trimming is the main edit, and it cuts deep. Trimming a transcript trims the video with it, you cannot undo it yourself, and it isn't supported for audio-only calls. On team plans, admins decide whether members may edit and trim transcripts at all. Product names and acronyms improve through the transcription dictionary, which Account Admins on team plans maintain: up to 50 terms, each at most 100 characters and 6 words, added manually. There is no bulk import. > 💡 **Teach the dictionary your jargon:** On Fathom's team plans, Account Admins can add up to 50 transcription dictionary terms, each up to 100 characters and 6 words, added manually; there is no bulk import. ## Getting recordings and transcripts out, and sharing them Downloads are unlimited on every plan, but the formats are narrow. **Recordings download as MP4 only**; as of November 2026, Fathom lists MP3 as coming soon. Transcripts have no download at all. You use Copy Transcript and paste the text where it needs to live.[4] For a whole archive, the Public API (on every plan) or the partner tool TranscriptExporter, which bundles transcripts into a ZIP, does the bulk work. API download links expire about 24 hours after they are generated. Sharing runs through links with three settings: anyone with the link, anyone on the same domain, or only people you add. Viewers need no Fathom account. **On Free and individual plans, the link sent to attendees defaults to anyone with the link**, and you change it recording by recording. Auto-share, when you turn it on, sends the summary and recording link (or the summary alone) to everyone on the invite, absentees included. A shared recording cannot be unsent, though the owner can revoke one person's access. Downloading someone else's call needs standard or admin access from its owner, and standard-access downloads and comments work only on a Team plan. Locking recordings down takes Enterprise: disabling recording download, disabling recording deletion and restricting anonymous access are Enterprise-only controls. Deleting a call also removes its notes. There is no undo. > ⚠ **Free share links default to public:** On Fathom's Free and individual plans, the recording link sent to attendees defaults to anyone with the link can view, and you have to change it recording by recording. ## Where recording stops: the hard limits Fathom does not publish a maximum meeting length or a storage cap, and Free and Premium keep recordings until you delete them. The real ceilings sit elsewhere. The bot cannot join Zoom meetings with more than 250 attendees or ones that require registration, and it skips Zoom Webinars; bot-free Zoom capture is exempt only from the 250-attendee and registration limits, and Zoom Webinars are unsupported on both routes. Fathom can join only one meeting at a time. You must attend, too: it will not record a meeting alone. The [Zoom setup guide](/articles/fathom-zoom) covers the waiting room and meeting ID settings the bot needs. Uploads are the gap most buyers ask about. Fathom records only live meetings and does not accept files recorded elsewhere, so an old webinar or a voice memo stays outside it. Beyond Zoom, Meet and Teams, it captures Slack Huddles bot-free through the Mac desktop app as part of the bot-free beta rollout, started from the tray unless you turn on auto-capture for unscheduled Huddles. The iPhone app records in-person meetings from the phone's microphone, online only. Phone calls are out. On Teams, the bot joins as an anonymous participant, may wait in the lobby, and cannot record end-to-end encrypted meetings. ## FAQ **Does Fathom capture the Zoom chat in the transcript?** Yes, for chat messages sent to Everyone or directly to the Fathom bot; private one-to-one messages between participants are not captured. **Can I get live transcripts through Fathom's API?** No. Transcripts reach the API only after post-call processing finishes, and summaries and action items returned by the API are always in English. **Can I move my Fathom recordings to another account?** No. Recordings cannot be transferred or merged between Fathom accounts, and content stays tied to the email it was recorded under; if you join a Team Account, your content belongs to that Team Account. **What happens to my recordings if I cancel a paid Fathom plan?** Paid benefits last to the end of the term, then an individual account reverts to Free, which keeps unlimited storage. On Team plans, cancellation goes through success@fathom.video and the team account becomes inactive. The bot keeps recording on Free unless you turn off Auto-record. ## The bottom line Fathom is generous on volume and narrow on format. Every plan, Free at $0 included, records and transcribes without a meeting count, in 38 languages, with speakers labeled and recordings downloadable as MP4. The trade-offs live in the details: transcripts leave only by copy or API, native summary languages and translated summaries belong to Premium and Team, and bot-free capture is a Mac beta. Choose the capture mode per meeting and lock down sharing links on Free. Then the setup holds. ## Sources [1] Fathom pricing page — https://www.fathom.ai/pricing (2026-11) [2] Fathom help: How to Upgrade to Fathom 3.0+ — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/11577345 (2026-11) [3] What languages does Fathom support? — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/296192 (2026-11) [4] Get a copy of your transcript — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/296000 (2026-11) [5] Fathom help center — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/6220097 [6] Fathom Terms of Service — https://www.fathom.ai/terms [7] Fathom Privacy Policy — https://www.fathom.ai/privacy