Record a Microsoft Teams meeting with audio, in Chrome

You recorded a Teams meeting, and the file has your voice and nobody else's. The usual reason is not a broken microphone or a wrong setting in Teams. It is where the meeting was running. This article explains why the Teams desktop app keeps the other voices out of a browser recorder, and how to record a Microsoft Teams meeting with audio from everyone by running it in a Chrome tab instead, using Cheap Recorder, which works in Chrome on Mac, Windows and Linux.

Why the desktop app loses the other side of the call

A meeting has two sources of sound. Your voice comes from your microphone. Everyone else's voice comes from whatever program is playing the meeting. A recorder that runs in the browser hears the other side through Chrome's tab sharing: when you share a tab and tick its tab-audio option, Chrome passes that tab's sound to the page.

Chrome only does this for its own tabs. It does not hand a web page the sound of a separate program, and the Teams desktop app is a separate program. So if the meeting runs in the desktop app, the recording has your voice and not theirs. Move the same meeting into a Chrome tab and both sides can be recorded.

This is good news, because nothing has to be installed. When you open a Teams meeting link, Teams usually offers to open the desktop app or to carry on in the browser. Choosing the browser is the whole fix.

What you need

Google Chrome on a Mac, Windows or Linux computer.
The Teams meeting in a Chrome tab, joined through the choice to carry on in the browser.
A Cheap Recorder account open in another tab. The Free plan covers recording the call, and it needs no card.
A microphone, and headphones if you have them. Headphones keep the other people's voices from leaking out of your speakers into your microphone.
Consent. Tell everyone you are recording before you start, and follow the law where you and they are. Many organisations also have their own rules about recording meetings, so check those too.

Step by step: record a Microsoft Teams meeting with audio

Join the Teams meeting in a Chrome tab. Check you can hear the others and that they can hear you.
In the Cheap Recorder tab, sign in. Under Where to save, press Choose folder… and pick where the recording should go.
Look at the Microphone tile. It shows which microphone will be recorded. Open Change or add microphones to pick another one, and press Rescan if you have just plugged one in.
In the Call audio tile, press Pick the call tab…. In Chrome's sharing window choose the Teams meeting tab, tick Share tab audio (some versions of Chrome say "Also share tab audio") and press Share. The tile now says "on" followed by the tab's name.
Under What to capture, choose what the picture shows: A browser tab to film just the Teams tab with faces and shared slides, Whole screen or A window for more, or Webcam only for just you.
Turn Record my webcam on or off. When it is on, your camera appears in the preview and you can drag it to another corner.
Type a name into Name this recording and press Start recording.
When the meeting reaches an agenda item or a decision, press M or Add marker.
When it ends, press Stop and finish. The file is saved in your folder and the page shows it in a player.

One detail matters if you film the Teams tab itself. Chrome shows its sharing window a second time for the picture, with its own tab-audio box. Leave that one unticked, because the meeting's sound already comes from the Call audio tile. Ticking it in both places puts the other voices into the file twice.

The full guide, with every button, is Record a Microsoft Teams call in the browser.

A worked example: the weekly team meeting

Say you run a weekly team meeting on Teams and want a recording for the people who could not come. Here is how a typical week goes.

Five minutes before the start, you open the meeting link in Chrome and choose to carry on in the browser. You wait in the lobby.
In the Cheap Recorder tab, you choose your meetings folder, check the Microphone tile names your headset's microphone, and choose A browser tab so the recording shows the shared slides.
You name the recording "Team meeting week 41", so the folder sorts in order next to last week's.
Once the meeting starts and you can hear people, you press Pick the call tab…, choose the Teams tab, tick Share tab audio, then press Start recording. In the second sharing window for the picture, you leave tab audio unticked.
Each time the meeting moves to a new agenda item, you press M.
At the end, you press Stop and finish, play the first few seconds to check both sides are there, and share the file from your folder.

The first time, do the same thing in a two-minute test call with a colleague the day before. A missing side is far easier to fix in a test than to explain after the real thing.

What can stop a long meeting recording

Long meetings bring their own surprises. These are the ones worth knowing before you start:

Pressing Stop sharing on the screen you are filming ends the recording. The recorder takes that as the end and finishes the file for you.
If the Teams tab's sharing stops, the others go silent. The recorder shows "Meeting audio sharing stopped." Your voice keeps recording, but the other side is missing from that point.
Signing in on another computer. If your plan works on one device at a time, signing in somewhere else signs you out here. The running recording is saved first, but it stops.
Monthly minutes. If your plan has a monthly minute limit and it runs out mid-meeting, the recorder stops and says so. Open your name in the top right to see how many minutes are left.
A microphone that drops out. If a USB or Bluetooth microphone disconnects, a message names it and asks you to reconnect it. Its sound ends at that point in the file.

One thing you do not need to worry about is sitting quietly. A recording in progress counts as activity, so a meeting where you mostly listen will not sign you out.

If a recording still comes out with a silent side, the article on finding which sound is missing from a screen recording goes through each cause in order.

What you get after the meeting

Below the player you can press Download MP4, or Download MP3 if you only want the sound. If Live transcript was ticked under Options, there are also Captions .srt and Transcript buttons. The transcript labels each line with the source that was loudest, such as "Meeting" for the other side, and you can rename those labels to real names.

On plans that include the AI tools, and when they are switched on for the site, the transcript area also has Summary, Chapters, Titles and Action items buttons. Pressing one sends the transcript, with the speaker names, to Anthropic to write the result. Nothing is sent unless you press one.

If a colleague uses different software, pick a format from More formats… and press Convert, for example MOV for Final Cut or Premiere.

The same approach works for Google Meet, which already runs in the browser: see how to record a Google Meet call with audio from both sides.

Frequently asked questions

Can I record a Teams meeting from the desktop app?

Not with both sides. Chrome cannot pass a separate program's sound to a web page, so join the meeting in a Chrome tab instead.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Cheap Recorder runs in Chrome, and Teams runs in a Chrome tab when you choose to carry on in the browser.

Will the transcript show who said what?

Each line is labelled with the loudest source, such as "Meeting" for the other side. Type real names into the Speaker boxes and press Save captions.

What happens if my monthly minutes run out mid-meeting?

The recorder stops and says so. Check how many minutes are left under your name in the top right before a long meeting.

Get started

The free plan needs no card. Try Cheap Recorder in Chrome, join your next Teams meeting in a browser tab instead of the app, and the whole meeting lands in one file on your own disk.