You recorded a Loom to walk a teammate through a workflow, and now someone needs the written version. A 22-minute video buried in a Slack thread is a dead doc. The fix: turn the Loom into a transcript you can paste into Notion, Confluence, or wherever your team's docs actually live.
Here's the workflow that works in practice, including where Loom's own transcript falls short and what to do about it.
Does Loom have a built-in transcript?
Yes, with caveats. Loom auto-generates a transcript for videos on its paid plans, and you can copy or download it from the video page. The auto-transcript is usually fine for a clear, single-speaker recording. It struggles with:
- multiple speakers (Loom doesn't reliably label who said what)
- product names, technical terms, and acronyms
- accented English and quiet audio
If the built-in transcript covers your needs, copy it from the share page and you're done. If not, you'll want the raw video and a dedicated tool. Keep reading.
How do I download a Loom video for transcription?
You need the source file to feed into a transcription tool.
Open the Loom in your browser and sign in to the workspace that owns it. You can only download recordings you own or that the owner has marked downloadable.
Click the three-dot menu (•••) below the video and choose Download. Loom exports an .mp4. If the option is missing, the owner needs to enable downloads on the share settings, or the workspace plan blocks it. Ask them to flip the toggle.
Rename the file to something searchable before you upload it elsewhere. The default filename is the video title plus timestamps and gets unreadable fast.
You can extract audio with ffmpeg or Audacity if you want a smaller file, but most transcription tools accept .mp4 directly, so it's optional.
How do I transcribe a Loom video accurately?
Upload the file to a transcription tool and let it run. Modern AI tools handle single-speaker explainer videos well out of the box.
Pick a tool. For team docs you typically want plain text plus speaker labels if there's more than one voice on the recording. You can transcribe your Loom video with no subscription by uploading the .mp4 directly.
Wait for the transcript. A 10-minute Loom usually returns in 1–3 minutes depending on the tool and the current queue.
Skim and fix. AI transcripts get product names and proper nouns wrong. Do one read-through correcting them. This is the step most people skip, and it's why their docs end up looking sloppy.
Paste into your wiki. Notion, Confluence, Slab, Slite, GitBook, anywhere prose lives.
What if my Loom has multiple speakers?
Loom's built-in transcript doesn't tell you who said what, so a two-person walkthrough becomes one block of text you can't follow.
You want a tool that does speaker diarization: it labels each chunk with "Speaker 1," "Speaker 2," and so on. The approach is the same one you'd use for any multi-speaker meeting; see how to transcribe a Zoom recording with multiple speakers for the longer version. Once you have the diarized output, do one pass replacing "Speaker 1" with real names and you've got a transcript that reads like a script.
Can I get timestamps on a Loom transcript?
Yes, and you should if anyone will ever want to jump back to the video. Most transcription tools can output either flat text or a version with [00:01:23] timestamps. For docs and tutorials, the timestamped version is genuinely useful: drop the doc next to the Loom and readers can click a moment instead of scrubbing through a long video. More on that in getting the most out of timestamped transcripts.
If you're building captions or chapter markers, ask for an .srt file instead of plain text.
How long does a Loom transcript take?
A few minutes end to end for most videos under 30 minutes. Realistic budgets:
- 5-minute Loom: 30–60 seconds of transcription, 2–3 minutes of cleanup
- 15-minute Loom: 1–2 minutes of transcription, around 5 minutes of cleanup
- 60-minute Loom: 5–10 minutes of transcription, 15–25 minutes of cleanup
Cleanup time scales faster than transcription time, because accuracy is best on the easy parts and worst on the words that matter (product names, jargon, internal acronyms). Don't skip the read-through. For a fuller picture of what accuracy looks like in practice, see transcription accuracy: what to expect.
What's the cheapest way to transcribe a Loom?
If you only transcribe a few Looms a month, a pay-as-you-go transcription tool is cheaper than upgrading your Loom plan just for the transcript feature. Loom bundles transcripts into its paid tiers; per-minute tools charge only for the minutes you actually run.
If you're transcribing dozens of Looms a week (a documentation team, a training team), the math flips and a bundled plan with whatever you already use can come out ahead. Time it for a month before you commit.
Paste any public link or upload a file and get a clean transcript in minutes. First 3 clips every month are on us — no card required.
The bottom line
For a clean, single-speaker Loom, the built-in transcript is fine. Copy and paste, you're done. For multi-speaker walkthroughs, anything with product names or jargon, anything over 10 minutes, or anything you'll keep as permanent documentation, download the .mp4 and run it through a dedicated tool. The extra five minutes are worth not having to redo it the next time someone asks for the doc.
Sources
- Loom — official site
- Loom support — current details on transcript availability and download settings
