Otter.ai Transcription: Turn Audio and Video Into Text, Step by Step

Otter.ai turns audio and video into text three ways: you record live in the browser, mobile or desktop app, you import a file of up to 5 GB, or the meeting bot captures a call for you. Which plan you need comes down to two caps, not to features. Basic gives each user 300 transcription minutes a month, but only 30 minutes per conversation and 3 file imports for the life of the account; Pro raises that to 1,200 minutes a month, 90 minutes per conversation and 10 imports a month^[1]. If your recordings run past 30 minutes, Basic is a preview, not a workflow. Anything longer than 90 minutes needs Business.

Pick a route: record live, import a file, or send the Notetaker

Live recording works in a computer browser and in the iOS and Android apps, using the device microphone. That detail matters. In a browser, headphones can stop Otter hearing the other side of a call, and Safari cannot capture sound from the speakers at all, a limit Apple sets; Otter recommends Chrome or Firefox. The desktop app for Mac and Windows avoids both problems because it records system audio without a bot, headphones included. Our Otter app guide covers each platform's requirements.

For meetings, Otter Notetaker (formerly OtterPilot) joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calls from a connected Google or Microsoft calendar. Once the calendar is connected, it auto-joins every event with a video link by default, so check that setting first; setup is in our Zoom, Teams and Meet guide. Otter says the Notetaker gives more accurate transcripts than manual recording because it takes the meeting's internal audio stream. A dropped connection does not end a recording either: audio keeps caching, the live transcript pauses, and Otter transcribes once the device reconnects.

Importing audio and video files

Import is the route for anything already recorded: podcast episodes, interviews, lectures, voice memos. Otter accepts AAC, MP3, M4A (including Apple Voice Memos), WAV, WMA and OGG audio, and AVI, MOV, MPEG, MP4, WMV, MPG, MKV and 3GP video, each file up to 5 GB^[2]. Drag several files in at once, or share one in from a phone's voice-memo app. Every import gets a summary, action items and an outline automatically. The catch is counting. Imports draw on the same monthly minute pool as recordings and meetings on Basic and Pro, with no rollover and no extra minutes for sale; our pricing guide has the billing rules.

On Basic, an import longer than 30 minutes shows only its first 30 minutes of transcript until you upgrade. With 3 lifetime imports, the free plan is a test of import quality, not a way to clear a backlog. When the 300 minutes run out, recording and importing both stop until the next cycle, which starts on your billing-cycle date rather than the 1st. Deleted conversations still count. Basic also shows only your 25 most recent conversations; older ones are archived, not deleted.

YouTube videos, podcasts, interviews and phone calls

Otter does not accept a pasted YouTube link^[3]. Download the video, or only its audio, as MP4 or MP3 and import it; other video sites work the same way. The alternative is to play the video and record it, through the Chrome extension, which captures browser audio from YouTube or Vimeo, or manually in the browser, where headphones are out and the room must stay quiet. The per-conversation cap still applies. A 45-minute video gives a Basic user 30 minutes of transcript.

For podcasts and interviews, import the finished file rather than recording the conversation twice. Voices Otter has already learned are tagged automatically on imports; new ones appear as Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on. One rule matters to anyone who sells transcripts. Otter's Terms bar commercial uses such as running a paid transcription workflow on the service, so read them before building a client offering on Otter.

Phone calls need a detour. Otter cannot record a phone call directly, because Apple and Google restrict third-party apps, and an active Otter recording on the phone pauses when a call starts. Record the call with the phone's built-in recorder, then import the file. Zoom Phone users can connect the Zoom Phone integration, which imports their own recorded calls automatically once a Zoom Phone licence and call recording are in place. Those minutes count too.

Languages, speakers and custom vocabulary

Otter transcribes six languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified), with German and Chinese still in beta. Chinese means spoken Mandarin; Cantonese, Traditional Chinese and Portuguese are not supported. Each conversation runs in one language, chosen before recording, and switching mid-meeting changes nothing; only French auto-switches to English. A finished conversation cannot be reprocessed in another language, so a wrong setting means exporting the audio and importing it again. The Chrome extension handles only English, Spanish and French.

Speaker identification starts after the recording stops or the import finishes, so you cannot tag speakers live; a Zoom meeting recorded by the Notetaker is the exception, labeled from participant names. Tag a speaker once and every paragraph with that Speaker number updates. Retagging works differently. It changes only the paragraph you click, so stray mistakes are fixed one by one.

Custom vocabulary teaches Otter names and jargon: 5 terms on Basic, 100 names plus 100 other terms on Pro, and on Business a team list of 800 names and 800 terms on top of 200 of each per user. Otter's accuracy advice is practical: keep the microphone within about three feet of the speaker, prefer a wired external mic to Bluetooth headphones, add vocabulary and tag speakers. Filler words such as um and ah are dropped automatically.

Processing, editing and exporting the transcript

Otter publishes its own timings^[4]. A 30-minute live recording or Notetaker meeting has a final transcript about 1.5 to 3 minutes after it ends, and the summary 2.5 to 6 minutes after. A 30-minute imported file takes about 4.5 to 6 minutes for the transcript and 5.5 to 7 for the summary, counted from the end of the upload. Editing opens once processing finishes. Otter cannot trim audio: export it, cut it elsewhere and import again, which spends another import and more minutes. Transcription is done by AI alone, with no human transcribers, and Otter's Terms warn against relying on AI output unchecked. Read anything you publish against the audio. Proofread every time.

Basic exports a transcript as txt and its audio as mp3. Pro adds pdf, docx and srt, and srt is the caption route: a timestamped SubRip file you can upload as captions or subtitles on YouTube and similar platforms. Business and Enterprise add bulk export, sent as an emailed link to a ZIP file. Some parts stay behind. Highlights and comments export only as TXT, the Outline and Action Items must be copied by hand, and Takeaways cannot be exported from the mobile app.

Which plan your recording volume needs

Basic is free. Pro costs $16.99 per user a month billed monthly, or $8.33 per user a month billed annually. Business costs $19.99 per user a month billed annually, or $30 per user a month billed monthly. Enterprise is sold through sales with no published price. Now run your numbers against the caps. A weekly 60-minute podcast is about 4.3 episodes, or roughly 260 minutes a month by our arithmetic. That fits Basic's 300 minutes, but every episode is twice Basic's 30-minute cap.

Pro covers that podcast. Its 1,200 minutes equal 20 hours a month: twenty 1-hour recordings or thirteen 90-minute ones, though only 10 a month can be imported files. A weekly two-hour interview breaks Pro's 90-minute cap, so Business is the answer, with 4-hour conversations and 6,000 imported minutes, or 100 hours of files per user a month. On Pro, annual billing ($99.96 a year by our arithmetic) beats monthly if you keep the plan 6 months or more. Under Otter's Terms, subscriptions are non-refundable; Otter documents narrow exceptions elsewhere (a Domain Capture migration, an Enterprise contract ended for Otter's breach), so test your audio on Basic first.

The bottom line

Otter handles the common transcription jobs well: live recordings on any device, bot-free desktop capture, imports in fourteen audio and video formats up to 5 GB, six languages and srt captions from Pro. What decides the plan is length and count. Basic suits short clips and a three-file trial of imports; Pro fits recordings up to 90 minutes and about 20 hours a month; Business is for anything longer, or for import backlogs up to 100 hours per user a month. Check your longest recording first. That number picks the plan.