Do I have to make the video public?

No. “Anyone with the link” means only people who have the link can open it — and nobody at TranscriptX keeps the link after the transcript is generated. If you’re nervous, flip it back to Restricted once your transcript is done.

Will this work on a Shared Drive?

Usually, yes — as long as the Shared Drive allows external link sharing. Some company Shared Drives force domain-only access; in that case the link won’t open from our servers. You’ll need to download the file and reupload it to your personal Drive.

Does this work for Zoom cloud recordings that auto-save to Drive?

Yes. That’s actually the most common use of this guide — Zoom drops the .mp4 into Drive, you share the link, and you get a transcript without paying for Zoom AI Companion.

How large a file can I transcribe?

TranscriptX handles anything Drive can store. Very long recordings (multi-hour) will take longer to transcribe, but there’s no hard file-size cap from our side on link-based transcription.

How to Transcribe a Google Drive Video (Without Downloading It)

Updated 24 Apr 2026 · TranscriptX editorial

Quick answer: Open the video in Drive, click Share, switch access to “Anyone with the link”, copy the link, paste it into TranscriptX. Done in about 30 seconds. No download, no plugin, no Drive permissions for us.

If your video is already in Google Drive, you don’t need to download it, convert it, or install anything. Just share the link and paste it.

The 30-second answer

Open the video in Drive. Click Share. Change access to Anyone with the link. Copy the link. Paste it into TranscriptX. That’s it.

Step-by-step

1) Open the video in Drive

Go to drive.google.com and click the video. Doesn’t matter if it’s in My Drive, a Shared Drive, or a folder someone shared with you — as long as you can play it, you can transcribe it.

[Screenshot: Drive file preview with the Share button visible top-right]

2) Click Share and set “Anyone with the link”

This is the one step people get stuck on. Click Share (top right). Under “General access”, change Restricted to Anyone with the link. You don’t need to add any email addresses. Viewer access is fine — we only need to read the file.

[Screenshot: Share dialog with General access dropdown open, “Anyone with the link” highlighted]

3) Copy the link and paste it into TranscriptX

Click Copy link, then paste it on transcriptx.xyz. Hit Transcribe. You’ll have a full transcript in under a minute for most videos.

[Screenshot: TranscriptX homepage input with a Drive link pasted and the Transcribe button highlighted]

Once you’ve got your transcript, you can flip the Drive link back to Restricted if you want. We don’t keep the link.

Common things that break

“You need access” or “Not allowed to access this video.” Your share setting is still Restricted. Go back to Share and set it to Anyone with the link.
Shared Drive won’t open externally. Some company Shared Drives force domain-only sharing and block external link access. We can’t get past that. Download the file to your laptop, reupload it to your personal Drive, and share from there.
The video is actually a Google Doc / Slides / Form. Drive shows videos, but “video” has to mean a real video file (.mp4, .mov, .webm, .m4a for audio). Recorded Meet sessions and exported Zoom recordings are fine. Presentations aren’t.
Video has a Google-level DRM flag. Rare, but some company-uploaded videos are flagged and can’t be streamed from a share link. If a colleague uploaded it with restrictions, ask them to export and send the raw file instead.

Related guides

How to transcribe a Zoom recording — the most common Drive use case.
How to transcribe a Microsoft Teams meeting — same pattern, different host.
How to transcribe a Loom video — for the share-link flow with Loom.

Try it

You get 3 free transcripts a month on TranscriptX. No signup needed for the first one — paste your Drive link and go. Pricing is on the pricing page if you want more.

Try TranscriptX free →