Over the past several years, video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams have become a staple of our everyday lives in both professional and personal capacities. Many tools have adapted to meet their users' needs by integrating with these platforms. Despite Google Meet being one of the most popular video call platforms worldwide, much of the data created by a Google Meet is challenging or impossible to get via a native API.
If you’ve ever searched “How to create a Google Meet link via API?” or wondered what’s actually possible with Google Meet’s APIs, this article breaks down what’s supported, what isn’t, and where you’ll need alternative approaches.
How to create a Google Meet meeting programmatically
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The Google Meet REST API allows developers to initiate meetings within their apps. You do need sensitive scopes, which requires your app to adhere to Google’s security and verification guidelines. In practice, obtaining these scopes can take several weeks and requires a formal security review, which is important to factor into implementation timelines.
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You can also generate a meeting that always points to the same URL by constructing a link in the format
https://meet.google.com/lookup/[custom-meeting-name],
where[custom-meeting-name]is replaced with your desired meeting name. The caveat is that you or your end user must be on a paid Google Workspace plan. Free Gmail accounts don’t support this capability. -
Finally, using the Google Calendar API, you can create a calendar event with an attached Google Meet. One important caveat: the meeting is tied to the calendar associated with your API authentication. If you’re creating meetings on behalf of an end user, they must grant OAuth access so the event and meeting belong to their account.
Creating Google Meet meetings programmatically works well for scheduling, invitations, and consistent meeting URLs. However, this approach does not provide access to in-meeting media, real-time events, or participant behavior. If your product depends on live audio, video, or transcripts, you’ll need additional integrations beyond Google’s native APIs.
For common questions about what you can and can’t access beyond meeting creation, see the appendix below.
Creating Google Meet meetings programmatically is often the first step, but many products eventually need more context from the meeting itself. If you have questions about accessing Google Meet data or data from any video conferencing platform, feel free to reach out.
What you can get from Google Meet programmatically
| Capability | Google Meet APIs |
|---|---|
| Create meetings | ✅ |
| Attach Meet to calendar events | ✅ |
| Participant lifecycle events | ⚠️ Limited |
| Retrieve attendee emails | ❌ |
| Access recordings | ⚠️ Via Google Drive |
| Real-time audio or video | ❌ |
Conclusion
Creating Google Meet meetings programmatically is well supported through Google’s APIs. However, accessing live meeting data, recordings, transcripts, and participant details quickly runs into platform limitations. Understanding where the official APIs stop—and where alternative approaches are required—can save significant development time and effort.
FAQs
Can I receive webhook notifications for Google Meet events?
Partially. Google supports some Google Meet–related events through the Google Workspace Events API, such as meeting start and end, participant join and leave, and when a recording or transcript is generated. Other real-time events, like screenshare start or active speaker detection, are not supported natively.
If you would like participant events for your Google Meets, check out the Google Meet Bot API which provides you with participant events and webhook notifications when the meeting ends among other events.
Can I retrieve the email addresses of meeting participants?
There is no direct API to retrieve attendee emails from a Google Meet itself. Depending on your setup, you may be able to infer participant emails using Google Calendar invites, Google Meet attendance reports, or the Admin SDK reports API. Using Recall.ai's free Calendar Integration API, you can get participant emails for your meetings.
How do I access Google Meet recordings or transcripts?
Google Meet recordings and transcripts are stored in Google Drive for eligible Workspace plans. While you can retrieve them using the Google Drive API, doing so requires restricted scopes and a lengthy security review.
We cover all available approaches in how to get Google Meet recordings and how to get transcripts from Google Meet.
Can I get real-time audio or video from a Google Meet?
Google does not provide an official API for accessing real-time audio or video streams from Google Meet. The primary workaround is to use a meeting bot that joins the call as a participant and captures media via WebRTC.
For a detailed walkthrough, see how to access real-time audio and video from Google Meet.
What if I don’t want to build and maintain my own Google Meet bot?
If you don’t want to manage headless browsers, WebRTC pipelines, and infrastructure at scale, you can use a managed solution like Recall.ai’s Google Meet Bot API to capture meeting data without building the underlying system yourself.
