Stop Otter from joining your meetings: remove it now, then turn off auto-join

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To get Otter's Notetaker out of a meeting right now, type stop otter in the Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams chat. Any participant can do it, with or without an Otter account, and it removes every Otter Notetaker in the call. To keep it from coming back, the account that brought it has to change one setting: auto-join.

I built YapToText, a dictation app for the Mac that is not a meeting recorder, so I have little stake in this one. Every fact about Otter here comes from its own help center, read on October 10, 2026.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

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Remove it from a live meeting

From Otter's help article Remove Otter Notetaker from your meeting, read October 10, 2026.

WayWho can do itWhat happens
Type stop otter in the meeting chatAny participant, no Otter account neededAll Notetakers are removed immediately
Stop Notetaker, from the link Notetaker posts in chatAny participant, if that Otter account has the chat message turned onThat Notetaker leaves after you confirm
Stop Notetaker on the conversation page or the home calendarThe Otter user who added itThat Notetaker leaves
Remove the participant in the meeting appZoom: the host or co-host. Meet and Teams: depends on the meeting's permissionsIt is removed like any attendee

If there are several Notetakers in the call, stop otter removes all of them. To remove just one, use one of the other ways.

Stop it joining future meetings

  1. Sign in to Otter on the web.
  2. Open Account Settings, then Integrations, then the Meetings tab.
  3. Under Default auto-join settings, select Meetings I manually select.

The same choice is on the home page: on the Meetings tab, click AI Notetaker settings and select Meetings I manually select. With that set, Otter no longer joins your synced calendar events by itself.

Check the events you changed by hand

Otter's article adds a catch. Events you toggled on or off one by one keep their own setting. Changing the default affects only meetings you never touched. So after you change the default, look through the calendar on Otter's home page and confirm Notetaker is off for each upcoming meeting. You can also disconnect your calendar, which removes all future events.

If it is someone else's Otter

  • In the meeting. Type stop otter in the chat. You do not need an account or the host's permission.
  • For next time. Only the person whose Otter account sends it can turn off auto-join. Ask them to change Default auto-join settings.
  • As the host. Remove it as a participant. Your meeting app's own settings decide who may join, including whether unknown guests are admitted.

Why it shows up uninvited

Otter describes Notetaker as a feature that automatically joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings through a synced calendar and transcribes them. When someone connects a calendar and leaves auto-join on, it attends every meeting on that calendar, including ones other people organized. That is the setting to change.

Notes without a bot in the call

If the goal is a transcript and the bot is the problem, a recording you make yourself can be transcribed afterward on your own computer. YapToText does that for free on a Mac: drop in the audio or video file and it returns plain text, with the model running on the Mac. It does not join calls, read a calendar, label speakers or write a summary. Ask everyone before you record.

The guide to transcribing a Zoom recording walks through it, the Otter alternative page compares more options, and the Live Captions guide covers Apple's built-in captions for any call.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

The short version

  • Right now. Type stop otter in the meeting chat.
  • Who. Anyone in the meeting, no account needed.
  • For good. Integrations, Meetings, Default auto-join settings, Meetings I manually select.
  • Then. Check events you had set by hand.
  • Not yours. Ask the account owner, or remove it as host.

If Otter changes these steps, open an issue on GitHub and I will update this page. Every one gets read.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Sources

Questions

How do I stop Otter from joining my meetings?

In Otter, open Account Settings, Integrations, Meetings, and set Default auto-join settings to Meetings I manually select.

How do I remove Otter from a meeting in progress?

Type stop otter in the Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams chat. All Otter Notetakers leave immediately.

Can I remove Otter if I do not have an Otter account?

Yes. Otter's help center says any meeting participant can remove Notetaker, including people without an account.

Why does Otter still join after I turned off auto-join?

Events you toggled individually keep their own setting. Review your calendar in Otter and turn Notetaker off for each one.

Can a host block Otter from a meeting?

A host can remove it as a participant, and the meeting app's own settings control whether guests like it are admitted.