How to Stop Fireflies.ai from Joining Your Meetings

Turn off Fireflies’ auto-join

1. Open the Fireflies web app and click Settings in the main menu.
2. Go to Recording & Privacy on the Personal tab and find the Recording section.
3. Switch off Auto-record meetings. Fireflies saves the change straight away.

There’s a shortcut on the Home page too: click Settings on the right and, under Auto-join calendar meetings, change All meetings (the default) to Only when I invite fred@fireflies.ai. Fred is the Fireflies notetaker; it then joins only the meetings you invite it to. Fireflies notes that recording rules can still bring Fred into a meeting, so check those if one is recorded unexpectedly.

Keep Fireflies out of a single meeting

With Only when I invite fred@fireflies.ai set, Fred stays out of any meeting whose invite doesn’t include fred@fireflies.ai. If it was added to an invite, remove that address from the calendar event. Fireflies doesn’t describe a per-meeting switch, so invite-only mode is the dependable route.

Remove Fireflies from a meeting in progress

• Zoom: open the participant list, click More next to Fireflies Notetaker and choose Remove.
• Google Meet: open the participant list, click the three-dot menu next to Fireflies and choose Remove from the call.
• Microsoft Teams: open the participant list, click the “…” menu next to Fireflies and choose Remove from meeting.
• Any platform: type /ff leave in the meeting chat and Fireflies leaves right away. The Fireflies user can also click Stop on the live meeting banner in their dashboard.

Removing someone from the participant list is usually limited to the host and co-hosts; the chat command doesn’t need either role.

Delete your Fireflies account

If you no longer want Fireflies at all: Settings › Account › Delete my account. Fireflies says your data is permanently deleted after 30 days.

When the Fireflies bot belongs to someone else

Fred joins on behalf of the person whose calendar is connected to it. Your own settings won’t stop a colleague’s or a client’s notetaker: ask them to switch to invite-only mode, or remove it from the call if you’re the host.

To keep bots out of meetings you host, use the platform’s own controls: Zoom’s waiting room, Teams’ lobby for detected bots, Google Meet’s Trusted or Restricted access. Our guide to removing AI meeting bots has the steps for each platform, and for Read AI and Otter.

Or skip the bot entirely

Fireflies sends Fred into the call because that’s how it gets the audio. A note taker that records on your own computer gets it without joining, so there’s no bot to turn off, remove or explain.

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.