Use Screencastify to Record Live Translated Captions in Google Meet

 

Last week, I wrote a blog about Google Meet's new ability to live translate captions. As I experimented with this feature, I became frustrated that when you record a Google Meet video call, the captions are not part of the recording. You could pay a service to add the captions in another language, but I developed this hack to get it done for free. 

This hack is not ideal, but it does help me record a video with live translated captions. Daily, I am leaving feedback for Google Meet to give a video call host the option of including the captions in the recording. If we all leave this feedback, Google usually listens.

Get started by initiating a Google Meet call. Right click in the video call and click Translate. For me, it defaults to Spanish. Read my previous blog post to change the language to something else.

Click the Present Now screen, Presente ahora in Spanish. Do this if you are using slides or another tab to teach your lesson.

Select the tab you are using for slides or other method of presentation.

When the screen says You are presenting now, go to the top right and click the "Pushpin" button in the thumbnail titled Presentation (You). This will bring your slides full screen in the video call.

At the bottom, click Turn on captions, Activar subtitulos is Spanish.

Before you start teaching, use Screencastify or another screencasting app to record. I prefer Screencastify. Using this app, select Browser Tab and start recording. During the three second countdown, switch over to the slides tab and teach the lesson.

Screencastify will record the screen and the live translated captions in the Google Meet tab while you are on the slides tab.

Watch all the ideas in this post demonstrated in the video below.