OwnTape – Local Recorder for Google Meet™

Record Google Meet™ calls to a video file on your computer. Free and open source. No account, no bot, no upload.

OwnTape records a Google Meet™ call to a video file on your computer. 100% FREE – NO HIDDEN COSTS No price, no paid plan, no trial, no subscription, no ads, no watermark, and no limit that we add on the number or length of recordings. OwnTape is open source (MIT licence) and has no server, so there is nothing to pay for. HOW OWNTAPE IS DIFFERENT • Your own voice is in the same file. OwnTape is made for Google Meet: the call and your microphone go into one video. General tab and screen recorders often record the others but not you. • Nothing leaves your computer. No account, no bot in the call, no upload. OwnTape makes no network requests. Notetaker bots join the call as an extra participant, need an account and keep the recording in the vendor's cloud. • Free, with no limits that we add. No limit that we add on the number or length of recordings, no watermark, no paid plan. The free plans of cloud recorder extensions often limit the number or the length of meetings. • It helps you tell people. When you start, OwnTape can post a notice in the Meet chat. General recorders usually give participants no notice. • You can check every claim. OwnTape is open source (MIT licence). You or your IT team can read the code. WHAT IT RECORDS • The Meet tab as you see it, including a shared screen that Meet shows in the tab. • The voices of the other participants. • Your own microphone. It is on by default. You can turn it off, and OwnTape remembers your choice. If Chrome blocks the microphone, the recording continues without your voice, and the popup shows how to fix it. Everything goes into one seekable .webm video file (VP9 video at up to 30 frames per second, Opus audio). You keep hearing the call while it records. Tested in a real one-hour meeting. VIDEO QUALITY In Settings you choose: • Standard (default): up to 1920×1080. About 0.45 GB per hour for still content (for example shared code) and about 1.1 GB per hour with much motion. • High: up to 2560×1440. About 0.5 to 2 GB per hour. It is sharper only when the Meet window is larger than 1920×1080 pixels (large or high-resolution screens), and it uses more processor power. Open Settings with the gear icon in the popup. OwnTape records the real pixel size of the tab and never enlarges it. The size is fixed at the start: if you make the window larger during the recording, the picture is not sharper. The recording is never sharper than what Meet shows in the tab, and Meet decides the quality of a shared screen. Tip: for a sharp shared screen, pin the presentation in Meet, make the Meet window large, and choose High on a large or high-resolution screen. If the picture updates slowly, the popup tells you (keep the Meet window visible and the computer awake). HOW TO USE IT 1. Join a call on meet.google.com. 2. Tell the other participants that you want to record, and get their agreement. 3. Click the OwnTape icon and press "Start recording". On a Meet call tab the icon shows the full OwnTape logo (tooltip "OwnTape – click to record this call"); on other tabs it is a pale ring. The icon turns red while it records, and the popup shows the current file size. Tip: pin OwnTape in the toolbar. If it is not pinned, the popup and the welcome page show you how. 4. Press "Stop and save". The .webm file is saved in your Downloads folder (no "Save as" dialog). Its name contains the meeting code and the date and time, for example meet-abc-defg-hij-2026-11-10-1430.webm. The recording continues when you go to another tab or minimise the window. If you leave the call or close the Meet tab, OwnTape stops and saves the file automatically. SAFE IF THE BROWSER CRASHES OwnTape writes the recording to disk during the call, in the browser's private storage. When the file is saved, the temporary copy is deleted. If the browser crashes, the popup shows "Unsaved recording": you can save the part that was recorded (only the last few seconds can be lost), or delete it. CONSENT AID: A NOTICE IN THE MEET CHAT When you press "Start recording", OwnTape can post a notice in the Meet chat from your account. The default text is: "I am recording this call with OwnTape. Tell me if you do not agree." • Turn it on or off with "Post a notice in the call chat". You can edit the text. OwnTape remembers your choice. • During the recording, "Post the notice again" posts it one more time, for people who join late. • OwnTape shows "Notice posted in the chat" only after it sees the message in the chat. If the post fails (for example, the host turned off the chat), the recording continues and the popup tells you to inform the participants yourself. "Copy the text" lets you paste it yourself. • OwnTape posts only when you press "Start recording" or "Post the notice again". It never posts at other times. Limits: people who join later do not see earlier chat messages, and not everyone reads the chat. Also say it aloud. The notice is an aid. It does not replace the agreement of the participants. WHERE YOUR DATA GOES Nowhere. OwnTape makes no network requests. It has no server, no account, no analytics and no tracking. No bot joins your call. The recording is made inside your browser and saved only on your computer. You decide if you share it. WHY IT EXISTS Google Meet™ recording is not included in some Google Workspace plans, for example Business Starter, or in free personal accounts. OwnTape is a free option for people on those plans: freelancers, teachers, students, small NGOs and small teams. OwnTape does not turn on or replace Google's own Meet recording. It records what your browser tab shows and plays, like a screen recorder, and saves the file on your computer. FREE AND OPEN SOURCE (MIT LICENCE) No price, no paid plan, no watermark, no limit on the number of recordings. The full source code is public, so you or your IT team can check what it does: https://github.com/AlexJoom/OwnTape LIMITS (HONEST LIST) • Works in Google Chrome 116 or later on a computer. Not on phones or in the Meet mobile app. • One recording at a time. • Files can be large: up to about 1.1 GB per hour at Standard quality and about 2 GB per hour at High, with much motion (less when the picture does not change much). Make sure that you have free disk space. • The recording is never sharper than what Meet shows in the tab. OwnTape cannot make a blurry shared screen sharp. • Keep the computer awake and unlocked while you record. • Tested in a real one-hour meeting. Longer recordings are not tested yet. • The file format is .webm. It plays in Chrome. Other players that support WebM (for example VLC or Firefox) should play it; tell us if one does not. For some other apps, convert it (for example to .mp4). • The "leave the call" detection and the chat notice depend on the Meet page. If Google changes the page, these two features can stop working. The recording itself still works, and it stops when you close the tab. • No transcripts and no AI notes. PERMISSIONS – WHY WE ASK • Tab capture: records the picture and sound of the Meet tab after you press "Start recording". • Offscreen: runs the recorder in a hidden extension page, so the recording continues when the popup closes. • Downloads: saves the finished file in your Downloads folder. • Storage: keeps your settings and the recording state in your browser. • Active tab: access to the tab where you opened the popup. • Scripting: writes your chat notice into the Meet tab that you record, and at the start reads two numbers from that tab (the window size and the pixel ratio) to record at the real size of the tab, never larger. • Access to meet.google.com only: reads the meeting code for the file name, detects when you leave the call, and lets the chat notice reach the Meet tab. No other website. WHY DOES CHROME SHOW A WARNING WHEN I INSTALL IT? Chrome shows "Read and change all your data on all websites" and "Manage your downloads". • The first warning comes from the tab capture permission. Chrome shows this text for every extension that can capture a tab. OwnTape captures only the tab where you press "Start recording". • OwnTape has no access to the content of other websites. Its only website access is meet.google.com. • The second warning comes from the Downloads permission, which saves your file. • The code is open, so you can check this: https://github.com/AlexJoom/OwnTape RECORDING AND THE LAW – PLEASE READ Recording laws are different in each country and region. In many places you must have the permission of ALL participants before you record a call. In the European Union and the UK, a recording that shows or identifies people is personal data under the GDPR. • Always tell the participants before you start, and get their agreement. • Use the recording only for the purpose you told them. • Keep the file safe and delete it when you no longer need it. The file name contains the meeting code, so take care when you share it. • On a managed work or school account, follow your organisation's recording policy. OwnTape reminds you to tell participants, and can post a notice in the Meet chat. The notice helps you inform people; it is not their agreement. You alone are responsible for how you use OwnTape and the recordings you make. This is not legal advice. PRIVACY POLICY OwnTape does not collect, sell or transmit any personal data. Full policy: https://github.com/AlexJoom/OwnTape/blob/main/PRIVACY.md Google Meet is a trademark of Google LLC. OwnTape is an independent open-source project. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Google.