Zoom Can No Longer Save Closed Captions: What Changed

Zoom's own words are blunt: "Starting May 18, 2026, users can no longer save or download closed captions." Live captions still run during the meeting — you just cannot walk away with the text afterwards.

That one sentence is the whole change, but two details get lost in every summary of it: Zoom's help center publishes two different dates for the same rollout, and the change has a narrower scope than most people assume.

The change, at a glance

Two official dates for the same change

This is not a typo on one page. Both statements are live on Zoom's support site:

• KB0063899 ("Saving closed captions in a meeting") says: "Starting May 18, 2026, users can no longer save or download closed captions."
• KB0085668 (the FAQ written specifically about this change) says: "Customers can expect to see these changes during a gradual rollout between May 24, 2026, and May 26, 2026."

Neither page mentions the other date, and Zoom does not reconcile them. What you can verify is the type of page and the wording each one uses: KB0085668 is the FAQ written specifically about this change, and its wording is "gradual rollout"; KB0063899 is the feature page, and its wording is "Starting." How the two dates relate to each other is something Zoom's official documentation doesn't state. Do not treat either date as the single answer. If you are writing an internal notice, cite both.

What Zoom removed, and what replaced it

Zoom frames the change as a split in purpose. From the FAQ, verbatim: "Zoom is updating how captions and transcripts work in meetings to provide a clearer separation between live accessibility features (captions) and saved meeting records (transcripts)."

Three web portal settings were removed. Zoom lists them exactly like this:

• Meeting > In Meeting (Advanced) > Full transcript
• Meeting > In Meeting (Advanced) > Save captions
• Recording & Transcript > General > Allow users to retain, access, and manage transcripts generated by AI Companion features for use by other AI Companion services

One setting was added — Meeting transcript, described as allowing "the generation and retention of transcripts," with these options:

1. Delete transcripts after a specified number of days — "Choose if you want transcripts deleted automatically after a specified number of days."
2. Allow hosts to view and manage transcripts after the meeting — covers viewing, deleting and downloading after the meeting ends.
3. Allow saving of transcripts to computer by — the scope list is "the host only, host and co-hosts, all participants who are not guests (external participants), all participants with specified IP addresses or ranges, and all meeting participants."

The line that catches most teams out: "Transcripts aren't enabled by default—a host or admin must explicitly turn them on." If nobody flips that switch, a meeting that used to produce a caption file now produces nothing.

What this change does not cover

Read the scope note before you conclude Zoom stopped giving out subtitle files. Verbatim: "Transcript settings for My Notes, archival, and cloud recordings will continue to be managed in separate locations in the web portal. Additionally, all other caption settings not listed above, such as Manual captions and Automated captions, are not affected by this change."

So cloud recording transcripts are untouched. Zoom's cloud recording settings still list "Create audio transcript: Select this setting to automatically transcribe your cloud recordings" and "Save closed caption as a VTT file: The closed captions are saved as a VTT file that is accessible by users on the cloud recording detail page."

Those files are the same ones Zoom documents in its recording file format list: "CC.VTT: Text file that contains closed captioning for the cloud recording" and "VTT: Text file that contains the audio transcription for the cloud recording." If you record to the cloud, you still get VTT.

What to do if you relied on saved captions

If you want text from live meetings, Zoom's instruction is direct: "If your organization relies on saved captions, you'll need to enable Meeting transcripts to continue retaining speech-to-text data." An admin or host has to turn it on — it will not appear by itself.

If the meeting is recorded, record to the cloud. Audio transcription "only applies to cloud recordings, not computer recordings that are saved to your device." Zoom's list of things computer recordings don't support names "Audio transcription" outright. A meeting saved to your laptop will not produce a transcript file, no matter which settings you enable.

If you have the VTT but need SRT, that is a format problem, not a Zoom problem. Zoom notes that "audio transcripts are saved in VTT format" and that you can open the downloaded file in a text editor — but most editors, players and upload forms expect SRT. Convert it here, in the browser:

Try it right here

Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.

Loading tool…

Nothing is uploaded — the file is parsed in your tab and handed back as SRT. If you need the trip in the other direction, SRT to VTT does that, and the rest of the set is on the tools page.

Gotchas worth knowing before you change settings

• Recording-side transcript switches are not retroactive. Zoom states that the viewer-facing transcript and chat visibility settings are "only applicable to newly created recordings." Flipping them will not add a transcript to last month's meeting.
• The transcript arrives after the video. Zoom: "Once the cloud recording becomes available, the audio transcript may take additional time to process." A missing VTT right after a meeting is often just a queue, not a failure.
• Zoom's two transcription pages disagree on languages. KB0065911 still says "Audio transcription only supports English," while KB0064927 says transcripts "are supported in multiple languages" and lists 19 of them, including Spanish, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified), plus steps to regenerate a transcript in a chosen language. The page with the concrete list and the working procedure is the more useful one, but check the official documentation before promising a language to your team.
• Captions during playback still work. Losing the download does not mean losing readability — "Captions remain available during playback of recordings."

FAQ

Can I still download Zoom closed captions? No. Zoom states that "users can no longer save or download closed captions" and that participants "cannot retain, save, or download captions as a post-meeting asset." Retained text now comes from the Meeting transcript setting instead.

When exactly did this take effect? Zoom publishes two dates. The feature page says "Starting May 18, 2026." The FAQ about the change says customers should expect "a gradual rollout between May 24, 2026, and May 26, 2026." Both are official; cite both.

Did Zoom also stop producing VTT files for cloud recordings? No. The change note says transcript settings for cloud recordings "will continue to be managed in separate locations in the web portal," and Zoom still documents the "Save closed caption as a VTT file" and "Create audio transcript" settings for cloud recordings.

Why does my meeting produce no transcript at all now? Most likely nobody enabled the replacement. Zoom says "Transcripts aren't enabled by default—a host or admin must explicitly turn them on." The other common cause is recording to your computer instead of the cloud, since audio transcription does not apply to computer recordings.

Can I still scroll back through captions during a call? Yes, within a window. Both Zoom pages describe captions remaining available live with the ability to review "the past 3 minutes."

Are manual and automated captions affected? No. Zoom says caption settings not on its removal list, "such as Manual captions and Automated captions, are not affected by this change."

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Need the recording itself in a more portable shape? See converting a Zoom recording to MP4, or browse the rest of the platform limits explained series.

All quotations above are from Zoom's support articles KB0063899, KB0085668, KB0064394, KB0064676, KB0064927, KB0065362, KB0065911 and KB0066790, checked 16 September 2026. Zoom revises these pages; verify against the official documentation before relying on them.