Fireflies.ai Setup Guide: How to Use It on Zoom, Teams and Meet

To use Fireflies.ai, sign in with a Google or Microsoft account, give it access to that one calendar, and then decide which meetings the bot joins before your next call. That last step matters most. Right after sign-up, the Fireflies.ai Notetaker is set to join every calendar meeting that has a video link, and the recap email goes to everyone on the invite.^[1] After that, capture works the same way on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Webex. The bot enters as a visible participant, records, and delivers notes about 5 to 10 minutes after the call. Each platform has a few settings that can keep it out.

Sign up and connect the one calendar Fireflies reads

New accounts are created at app.fireflies.ai with Continue with Google or Continue with Microsoft, and Outlook addresses work as well. Sign-up asks for access to the calendar tied to that email, because Fireflies reads it to find upcoming meetings and join them. Only Google Calendar and Outlook or Office 365 are supported, and only one calendar per account. Apple and Zoho calendar users have to move their meeting invites to one of those two. If work and personal calls live in separate calendars, sign up with the account that holds the calls you actually want captured.

On the Free plan, the sign-up date changes what you get. Accounts created on or after September 2026 start with a few transcription credits: 3 when you sign up on the web, 5 through the Chrome extension and 10 as a new mobile user. One credit covers one meeting, and these credits are a one-time total, not a monthly refill. The way past that cap is calendar auto-join, which makes Free transcription unlimited; those transcripts are raw text, and AI summaries, recaps and action items still depend on a small credit balance. Older accounts keep unlimited free meetings. Every Free team also has 400 minutes of storage in total. Our guide to whether Fireflies.ai is free lists the rest of the Free limits.

Choose the auto-join setting before your next meeting

The control is called Auto-join calendar meetings. You find it under Settings, then Recording & Privacy, and also under Meeting Settings on the Home dashboard, next to the recap email and default privacy controls. Set it before the calendar sync runs into your next week of meetings, because the default sends the bot to calls you only attend. It has four options:^[2]

• All meetings with a web-conferencing link (the default, whether or not you host)
• Only meetings I own
• Only meetings with teammates
• Only when I invite fred@fireflies.ai

For most people, Only meetings I own is the safer start. The bot stops appearing uninvited in calls that clients, candidates or partners host, yet Free transcription stays unlimited, because the first three options all count as auto-join being on. The invite-only option gives full manual control, but it does not count, so each invited meeting draws a credit. Choose invite-only on a paid plan, where transcription is not credit-limited, or on a Free account created before September 2026. On a newer Free account it leaves you with only the sign-up credits in total (3 if you signed up on the web), after which the bot stops transcribing until you turn auto-join back on or upgrade, and the 400-minute Free storage cap still applies.

Two more controls sit on top of that choice. Recording rules make the bot join meetings that match chosen title keywords, emails or domains, and restriction rules make it skip them. Both always override the auto-join setting. The Upcoming tab on Home lists the next 7 days of calendar meetings with a toggle on each, so you can switch the bot off for one call. On a team, admins can set an auto-record policy for everyone; by default each teammate chooses.

Three ways to get the bot into a meeting

Calendar auto-join is the hands-off route. For a single meeting, add fred@fireflies.ai as a guest on the calendar event. The event needs a video link, and that invite gets the one meeting transcribed even with auto-join off. It does not work for a call that has already started.^[3] For those, open Capture in the web app, choose Add to live meeting and paste the meeting link. The notetaker arrives in about 30 seconds to 3 minutes. You need not be the host, but the host may have to admit it.

The mobile app can also send the bot into a live call, and the Zoom Surface App adds it from inside Zoom. Timing has limits. The bot joins at the scheduled start and waits in a lobby for up to 10 minutes on Google Meet and 15 minutes elsewhere before giving up. On Free and Pro it attends one meeting at a time, while Business and Enterprise allow three, so overlapping calls on a lower plan leave one uncaptured. Each plan also caps meeting length (2 hours on Free and Pro, 3 on Business, 4 on Enterprise), and then the bot leaves; our pricing breakdown covers what each plan lifts.

Zoom, Teams, Google Meet and Webex: what can block it

Zoom

Fireflies joins Zoom through the web client as a guest. Three Zoom settings stop it: end-to-end encryption, a waiting room nobody watches, and Only authenticated users can join from Web client. Password-protected meetings need the passcode embedded in the link you invite or paste. Zoom applies settings when a link is created, so recreate old recurring links after changing them. When the host is not a Fireflies user, Zoom asks the host to allow recording and plays its own announcement. If anyone declines that consent prompt, the bot stays out. Phone-audio participants are not recorded.

Connecting the optional Zoom integration changes the first-call experience. With it, the bot can join without host approval and skip waiting rooms and the authenticated-users restriction. It is worth doing if you host most of your own Zoom calls. One thing it cannot remove: Zoom's recording announcement always plays for external participants, and only some Zoom account types can turn it off for internal ones.

Microsoft Teams

The bot joins Teams as a guest, and guest access is off by default in Teams, so an admin must turn it on. Admins should also let guests bypass the lobby and set the verification check to Not required. Otherwise the notetaker sits in the lobby or hits a CAPTCHA. Teams may also list it under Suspected threats. The calendar event needs a valid Teams link, and leaving the bot in for at least 3 minutes is the minimum for a recap.

Google Meet and Webex

On Meet the host must admit the notetaker, and Google may flag it as a potential risk in the waiting room. That label is Google's warning; the host admits it from the Participants panel. The host's Workspace must also allow users who are not signed in. If you would rather skip the bot on Meet, the Chrome extension captures audio in Chrome without one. Webex works through the same three routes: auto-join, fred@fireflies.ai on the invite with the Webex link and password, or Add to live meeting.

What participants see, and where the recap goes

The bot cannot be hidden. It shows as Fireflies.ai Notetaker in the participant list and posts a chat message with a link to Fireflies' privacy policy and the real-time notes pane. Any participant can remove it, or type /ff leave in the chat; our guide on how to remove Fireflies.ai covers every way to stop it. An optional compliance email can warn attendees an hour before, with an opt-out link; it is off by default. Recording consent is your responsibility under Fireflies' Terms, with the bot or without it.

Transcripts and notes usually arrive 5 to 10 minutes after the call, and meetings shorter than 3 minutes produce no recap. The recap email has three audiences: everyone on the invite (the default, so external guests get it too), only you plus participants from your Fireflies team, or only you. Changing the email audience does not change who can open the meeting. That is a separate setting, and its default is Teammates & Anyone with Link, so a forwarded link opens the meeting.^[4]

Privacy levels run from that default down to Only me, and you can save a stricter one as the default for future meetings. Shared links can expire after 24 hours or 7, 14 or 30 days, and the expiry cannot be changed after sharing. Password-protected links need Business or Enterprise. On Free or Pro, a guest without an account sees only the transcript and audio playback.

Finding meetings later: Notebook, search and channels

Every captured meeting lands in the Notebook, whichever route caught it: the notetaker, the desktop app, the Chrome extension, the mobile app, an upload or a Voice Agent. An icon shows the capture method, and you can filter by it. Search inside a meeting and global search across meetings work on every plan. Smart Search filters for questions, tasks, dates, metrics, sentiment and talk time start on Pro. AskFred search can also summarize the past week's highlights, action items, topics and updates, and AskFred runs on AI credits.

Channels group meetings like shared folders. Free workspaces get the default channels plus up to 3 public ones, Pro and higher get unlimited public channels, and private channels need Business or Enterprise and an admin to create them. You can add or move meetings you own or attended; admins can move any meeting. Deleting a channel keeps its meetings. Deleting a meeting is permanent. Routing future meetings into channels automatically requires the Rules Engine, which is Enterprise only.

The bottom line

Fireflies.ai takes minutes to set up, and most of the work is one decision: which meetings the bot may join. Change auto-join to Only meetings I own before your next call, set the recap email and privacy defaults to match who should read your notes, and ask an admin to clear the Zoom or Teams settings that block guests. After that, add fred@fireflies.ai for planned calls and use Add to live meeting for calls already running. Everything you capture ends up in one searchable Notebook.