LiveCaptionIt / Live captions for Google Meet
Free live captions for Google Meet.
Any Workspace plan. Any language Whisper supports (99 of them). Floating Picture-in-Picture window above the meeting itself. Free, no signup, audio stays on your device.
Free · any Workspace plan · invisible to the meeting
Step-by-step
- 1
Join the Google Meet in your browser
Open meet.google.com/<meeting-code> in Chrome / Edge / Brave. (Google Meet is browser-only by default — no native app to worry about.)
- 2
Open LiveCaptionIt in another tab
Visit livecaptionit.com in a second tab. Click "Start captions".
- 3
Share the Meet tab + tick 'Share tab audio'
Browser picker opens — pick your Google Meet tab and tick 'Share tab audio' at the bottom. Without it, only video is shared, no audio.
- 4
Switch back to Meet
Floating PiP caption window appears. Switch back to the Meet tab. Captions update in real time, visible no matter which app you switch to.
Meet captions vs LiveCaptionIt
| Meet built-in | LiveCaptionIt | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan needed | Workspace plans only | Any (including free Gmail) |
| Floating window | ✗ Inside meeting only | ✓ PiP, any app |
| Languages | ~15 (varies by plan) | 99 (Whisper) |
| Privacy | Sent to Google | Local-only, no upload |
| Transcript download | Plan-dependent | Always (.txt/.vtt/.srt) |
Common questions
Why use this when Google Meet has captions built in?
Google Meet's native captions are good but limited to Google's supported language list and locked to certain Workspace plans. LiveCaptionIt captions any Meet call on any account — including free personal Gmail — supports 99 languages via Whisper, and adds a floating Picture-in-Picture window so you can read captions while doing something else in another tab or app.
Does Google Meet know I'm using third-party captions?
No. LiveCaptionIt captures the tab audio locally in your browser, runs Whisper on your device's GPU, and renders captions on your own screen. Meet sees no different activity from a normal participant. No plugin, no extension, no bot joining the call.
Can I caption a Meet call recorded in Drive after the fact?
Yes if you can play the recording in a Chrome tab. Open the recording from Google Drive, share the tab with audio in LiveCaptionIt, hit play. Live captions appear, and you can download the transcript as .txt / .vtt / .srt afterward. Useful when Google's native auto-transcription doesn't cover your call or language.
Will the captions show up for other Meet participants?
No. Captions are rendered only on your own screen — Meet doesn't know about LiveCaptionIt, and the floating window is your local browser's PiP API. Other participants see the meeting normally. If you want everyone to see captions, enable Meet's native captions for the call (their per-participant on/off doesn't affect you).
Can I caption a Meet call I'm joining from my phone?
Mobile browsers don't support tab audio capture, so caption-the-Meet-tab won't work on a phone. LiveCaptionIt's microphone mode does work on mobile — point your phone's mic at the speaker playing the Meet audio (or use a wired/Bluetooth speakerphone). Captions appear inline on your phone. Better still, join from a laptop where tab capture works natively.
Caption your next Meet call
Any Google account. Floating window. Audio never uploads.
Open LiveCaptionIt →