Meeting notes and the editor in Notetaker

Write notes during a call in the floating notepad, or reopen a past meeting in the Flow hub to edit its notes, summary and title.

Open and navigate a meeting

1. Open Notetaker in the Flow hub and select a meeting.

2. Choose the tab for the content you want to read or edit.

Use Back for the meeting list or Open note in window for the floating notepad; a meeting is editable in one place at a time, so opening it from the hub focuses its existing floating window.

For starting, stopping, resuming or switching recordings, see Recording a meeting with Notetaker. Use the Notetaker hub to find another meeting. For speaker names in the transcript, see The live transcript in Notetaker.

Choose how the notepad opens

On Mac, Open side by side needs Accessibility permission; without it the setting reverts to another option. If Flow offers to hide the notepad for you, accepting sets Keep Notepad hidden, and Undo restores your previous choice.

Write, save and rename

1. Click in My thoughts and start writing, in either the hub or the floating notepad.

2. Edit the title field to rename your own meeting.

Edits save as you work and when you quit Flow; they appear in other windows after you pause typing and on other devices once synced. A new typed note is created only after you edit its title or body. Generating, editing or deleting summary text does not change My thoughts. Older notes Flow cannot read open read-only, so they are not overwritten. If you see Couldn't save changes, Flow retries failed saves automatically and the badge clears after a successful save.

After a meeting ends, Flow generates a title only if the title is blank and there is recorded speech or typed content; calendar titles and your renames take priority. Generation can be delayed or fail without an error message — rename the meeting yourself.

Generate or update the summary

1. Open Summary after stopping the recording; the Generate and Update controls are hidden while a meeting is live.

2. Click the summary text to edit it once it is ready, including any next steps. Editing is locked while a summary generates.

A meeting always reaches a final state — done or failed — rather than waiting indefinitely; if it cannot be processed, it shows We couldn't process your meeting. If you were offline when the recording stopped, it finishes on its own once you reconnect; you don't need to restart Flow.

Resume a meeting whose summary you have not edited and Flow refreshes it: once you stop again, a complete transcript and summary from the whole recording replace the earlier partial ones when ready, with the previous summary visible in the meantime. The refresh runs when the resumed part adds a meaningful amount of audio; otherwise the existing summary is kept and Update Summary stays available.

If you have edited the summary, your version is kept until you choose Update Summary, which becomes available after you record newer audio and stop — including when the resumed recording was interrupted by a crash, quit or lost connection. The previous summary stays visible during an update and after a failed update, and is kept even if the newer audio is too short or silent to summarize.

How names appear in the summary

Summaries never hedge a person's name: someone is named only when the transcript is clear and otherwise described by role or action, and remaining unidentified speakers appear as plain Speaker labels. Your own speech is attributed to you using the name on your account profile, including in Microsoft Teams meetings. Garbled company, product or tool names can still be marked as uncertain, for example "likely Acme".

If the summary doesn't arrive

• Waiting for a connection: restore your connection, then choose Retry.

• Can't reach our servers to upload this meeting: a VPN, proxy, firewall or work network is blocking the upload. Turn it off or switch networks, then choose Retry. The same notice appears on the meeting card in the hub.

• Your connection is too slow to upload this meeting: your recording is saved and Flow keeps trying on its own at longer and longer intervals; choose Retry on a faster network to try again straight away.

• Generation failed: choose Retry when offered. It appears only for recoverable failures; the full recording may no longer be available.

• Transcript too short to meaningfully summarize or No meaningful audio recorded: the meeting is finished and there is nothing to summarize, so there is no Generate or Retry action; recording new audio can make Update Summary available.

Retry nudges the upload already in progress instead of creating a second copy of the meeting.

Copy or search

Summary copy and search require an existing summary body, including while an update is running or has failed, and their shortcuts apply while the Summary tab is active. Typed notes need a saved first edit before copy and share become available; the meeting must also finish preparing, sharing must be enabled, and any Notetaker setup or access screen must be cleared. If the tooltip says Preparing meeting…, wait for preparation and complete any displayed setup.

• Copy the summary: use its copy action, or Cmd/Ctrl+C with no text selected and focus outside editable fields.

• Copy from the transcript: select text and press Cmd/Ctrl+C. Cmd/Ctrl+A selects the whole transcript, and Cmd/Ctrl+C with nothing selected copies all of it. Your selection survives scrolling, and a live transcript stops scrolling on its own while text is selected.

• Copy the full meeting: choose … → Copy as Markdown, when sharing controls are enabled.

1. Open search on the Summary or Transcript tab with Cmd/Ctrl+F, Search, or / when focus is outside a text field.

2. Enter at least two characters; adding to your query jumps to the first match of the new query.

3. Move between matches with Enter/↓ or the ▼ chevron for next, and Shift+Enter/↑ or ▲ for previous; the current match scrolls into view. Escape clears and closes search.

Notes shared with you

Shared notes open read-only on Summary, with no My thoughts tab, and a locked Transcript tab leaves you on Summary. You cannot change the owner's title, notes or summary — create your own note to write about the same topic.

Shared transcripts and their speaker details are not stored on your device and need a fresh online fetch each time you open the note, so an offline summary can stay readable while its transcript fails to load.

If access is missing, check which account you are signed in to and ask the owner about the sharing settings, or ask your admin if an organization message blocks sharing. See Sharing meeting notes from Notetaker for sharing controls.

Still need help?

Contact support if Couldn't save changes remains after automatic retries, or a summary cannot be retried. Include your platform, the exact message and what you tried.