How to Remove Read AI from Google Meet (and Stop It Rejoining)

Remove Read AI from a Google Meet call in progress

1. Open the People panel in the call.
2. Find Read in the list, click the three-dot menu next to it and choose Remove from the call. With host management on, only the host and co-hosts can do this.
3. Not the host? Type opt out in the meeting chat. Read leaves, no report is created and nothing is saved. Read stop also makes it leave, but writes a report of what it captured so far.

When Read joins, it posts a chat message naming the person who added it. That tells you whose settings need to change.

Keep Read AI out before it joins

• Decline its request: Read asks to join and waits to be let in. Read says that in Google Meet one attendee declining is enough to keep it out, so choose Deny entry when it knocks.
• Switch it off for one meeting: if you use Read, open Read’s Calendar, select the meeting and turn off Add Read? a few minutes before it starts. For a recurring meeting you can turn it off for single sessions without changing the series.

Stop Read AI rejoining your meetings

These steps are for your own Read account. Work down the list until it stops; each step goes further than the one before.

1. Narrow auto-join: in Read, open Account Settings › Meeting Recording › Auto-Join Preferences. Under Which Calendar Events and Who’s Invited, choose when Read may join, for example only meetings you host.
2. Disconnect Google Calendar: on Read’s Integrations page, under Calendar & Meetings, click the active calendar integration and choose Disconnect. Without a calendar, Read has no meetings to join on its own.
3. Revoke its Google access: in your Google Account, open the third-party connections page (myaccount.google.com/linkedapps), choose Access to your Google Account, select Read, then See details › Remove access › Confirm.
4. Remove the Chrome extension: Read also offers a Chrome extension for Gmail and Google Calendar. Remove it from Chrome’s Extensions page if you installed it.
5. Delete the account: Account Settings › Advanced › Delete my account, then confirm.

Why Read AI keeps joining your Google Meet calls

• Someone else invited it: Read joins when any invitee has connected their calendar to it, so a colleague’s or a client’s Read can turn up in your meeting. Your settings don’t change theirs. The chat message names who added it; ask them to turn off Add Read? for the meeting.
• A second Read account: Read’s help centre names a second account of your own, for example one signed in with a different email, as the other common cause.

Keep note-taking bots out of Google Meet calls you host

On a Google Workspace account, open Host controls (in the call, or in the Calendar event’s settings under the Host controls tab) and scroll to Meeting access. Trusted lets people in your organisation and invited guests join without knocking; Restricted lets in only people invited through Google Calendar or by a host. Everyone else has to knock, and you decide.

Google’s help page adds the step that stops bots outright: with Trusted or Restricted access, turn on Host must join before anyone else and untick the option to ask to join. Anonymous users and third-party bots such as note takers that try to ask to join are then denied automatically. Restricted isn’t available on personal Google accounts.

For Zoom, Microsoft Teams and the other well-known note takers, see how to remove AI meeting bots.

Or skip the bot entirely

Read joins because that’s how it gets the audio: as a participant in the call. A note taker that records on your own computer doesn’t need a seat in the meeting, so there’s nothing to admit, remove or block.

QuietNote records your microphone and your computer’s audio on your own Mac, so no bot joins the call and nothing is added to the participant list. It transcribes on your computer with a local Whisper model, and writes the summary, decisions and action items with a local model through Ollama, unless you choose a cloud model with your own key. Each meeting is saved as a Markdown file in a folder you pick, and you don’t need an account.

It’s coming soon for macOS 14.2 or later, with Windows and Linux planned. Join the waitlist and we’ll email you the day it ships; waitlist members keep 50% off for life. Whatever you use, tell people you’re taking notes where the rules require it.