how to remove the Fireflies bot (and what to use instead)

why Fred keeps coming back

Fireflies doesn't record meetings the way a person would — it sends a bot participant (nicknamed Fred) into the call. The bot finds your meetings through a calendar integration: when you connect Google Calendar or Outlook, Fireflies reads upcoming events with meeting links and, depending on your autojoin settings, dials the bot into them automatically. That's why removing the bot from one meeting changes nothing: the next calendar event triggers the next join.

There's a second reason Fred appears that surprises people: it may not be your bot at all. Because autojoin is calendar-driven, any attendee who has Fireflies connected can be the source — a coworker, a client, someone who tried the product once and forgot. If you've never signed up for Fireflies and the bot still shows up, someone else on the invite brought it. That case needs host controls (below), not account settings.

step-by-step: removing Fred for good

Work from the meeting outward: eject the bot from the live call first, then cut off each mechanism that lets it come back. The steps below are described at the level of what each settings page does — Fireflies and the meeting platforms rename menu items regularly, so look for the concept rather than an exact label.

• In a live meeting: if you're the host, open the participant list and remove the Fireflies bot like any other participant. On platforms that support it, lock the meeting or enable a waiting room so it can't rejoin mid-call.
• Turn off autojoin: in Fireflies' settings, find the meeting/autojoin preferences and set the bot not to join your calendar events (there are usually options for all meetings, only meetings you own, or none — choose none).
• Disconnect the calendar: in Fireflies' settings under integrations/connected apps, disconnect Google Calendar or Outlook. Without calendar access, Fireflies can't see which meetings exist.
• Revoke OAuth access — the definitive step: go to your Google Account's security page (third-party apps & services) or your Microsoft account's privacy/app access page and remove Fireflies' access entirely. This kills the permission at the source, independent of anything in Fireflies' own settings.
• If you're the meeting host and the bot belongs to someone else: remove it from the participant list, use the waiting room to screen joins, and ask attendees to turn off their notetaker for this call. On Microsoft Teams, platform-level relief is coming — Teams begins automatically blocking third-party notetaker bots in August 2026.

the catch: deleting your account may not stop the bot

Reviewers on Trustpilot report Fireflies bots continuing to join meetings even after the account was deleted. Mechanically this is plausible: account deletion and OAuth grants live in different systems, and if the calendar permission survives on the Google or Microsoft side, the machinery that joins meetings can keep running. The practical fix is the OAuth revocation step above — revoke the grant in your Google/Microsoft account security settings yourself rather than trusting account deletion to cascade.

If the bot still appears after you've revoked everything, it isn't yours: another attendee's Fireflies account is inviting it. Handle it as the host (remove, lock, waiting room) and ask around — most people don't realize their notetaker follows every meeting on their calendar.

Context for why so many people are searching for this page: Fireflies is currently facing two lawsuits under Illinois' biometric privacy law (BIPA) over voiceprints, and non-consensual recording by AI notetakers is the subject of a consolidated federal class action against Otter. Whatever the outcomes, the pattern is clear — a bot that records everyone in the room creates consent obligations that most attendees never agreed to.

what to use instead (honest options)

First, the fair option: keep Fireflies, but tame it. If your team relies on its CRM integrations, cross-team meeting search, and cloud-grade transcription accuracy, you don't have to quit — set autojoin to only the meetings you own, or invite the bot manually per meeting. Fireflies with autojoin off is a much better citizen than Fireflies on default settings.

Second, bot-free desktop capture — Granola is the polished example. No participant joins your call, which solves the social problem. But it doesn't solve the data problem: Granola sends audio to cloud ASR providers (Deepgram/AssemblyAI), sends transcripts to OpenAI and Anthropic for note generation, trains on user data by default, and caps free-plan history at roughly 25 notes. The bot is gone; the upload is not.

Third, on-device capture: now recording runs in your browser (any current Chrome or Edge — including managed work profiles — with the Whisper speech model ready in about 2 seconds, no install, no GPU). Nothing joins the call, nothing appears in any participant list, and the audio never leaves your device — transcription happens locally, a claim you can verify by watching the network tab in DevTools. You can also drop existing recordings (MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, MP4 audio) onto the recorder page for free, unlimited on-device transcription. It's currently free for everyone in early access (planned Pro: $8/month, or $5/month billed annually). The honest trade-off: an on-device model won't match the raw accuracy of cloud ASR like Fireflies uses — there's an opt-in high-accuracy re-transcribe pass after a meeting, but if maximum transcription accuracy on difficult audio is your top priority, cloud tools still win there. What leaves your device (and what doesn't) is documented in a sourced comparison at nowrecording.com/trust.

frequently asked questions

Why does the Fireflies bot keep joining after I removed it from a meeting?

Because removal is per-meeting but autojoin is calendar-wide. The bot joins every qualifying event it sees through the calendar integration, so the next meeting triggers the next join. To stop it, turn off autojoin in Fireflies' settings, disconnect the calendar integration, and revoke Fireflies' access in your Google or Microsoft account security settings.

I don't even have a Fireflies account — why is Fred in my meeting?

Another attendee connected Fireflies to their calendar, and their bot follows meetings they're invited to. As host, remove the bot from the participant list, lock the meeting or use a waiting room, and ask attendees to disable their notetaker. On Microsoft Teams, third-party notetaker bots will be blocked automatically starting August 2026.

Does deleting my Fireflies account stop the bot?

Not always. Trustpilot reviewers report bots continuing to join after account deletion. To be certain, revoke Fireflies' OAuth access yourself from your Google Account's third-party access page or your Microsoft account's app permissions page — that removes the calendar permission at the source.

If I switch to a botless recorder, do I still need consent to record?

Yes. Recording laws apply regardless of the tool — many jurisdictions require everyone on the call to consent. Removing the bot removes the visible participant, not your obligation to inform people. now recording shows a visible recording indicator and gives you a one-click disclosure message to paste into the meeting chat.

Is now recording actually free?

Yes — it's currently free for everyone in early access, with unlimited recording, on-device transcription, file import, speaker stats, and exports. A Pro plan is planned at $8/month (or $5/month billed annually) but isn't purchasable today.