How do you write a meeting recap email?
Put the decisions first, then each action with an owner and a date, then what is still open and when you next meet. Name the meeting and date in the subject line, keep it short enough to read on a phone, and send it the same day for anything with a client or buyer. Leave out who said what.
That last rule is old. Robert's Rules of Order, a parliamentary rulebook for formal meetings, says at §48:2, as quoted by Michigan State University's guide to writing minutes: "Minutes should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members." A recap email is less formal than minutes, but the principle carries over: record the outcomes and leave the discussion out.
The need is real. In Microsoft's 2023 Work Trend Index, a survey of 31,000 workers in 31 countries run for Microsoft by Edelman Data x Intelligence in February and March 2023, 55% said next steps at the end of a meeting are unclear and 56% said it's hard to summarise what happens. Microsoft sells AI meeting recaps, so read that as a vendor's survey, but a short recap that names the next steps answers both complaints.
Meeting recap format: what to include by meeting type
The format stays the same; what changes by meeting type is the opening line, how much context you add, and who receives it. Our rules for a small B2B team:
| Part | Sales call | Client kickoff | Internal meeting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Your company and theirs, plus "notes and next step" | Project name, "kickoff", decisions and owners | Meeting name, date and the count: "2 decisions, 4 actions" |
| First line | Thanks, and what you heard, in their words | The start date and first deliverable | The bottom line in one sentence |
| Decisions | What you both agreed | What done looks like and who decides what | Every decision, with who made it |
| Actions | Yours first, then theirs, with dates | Every action with an owner and date, both sides | Owner, action, date |
| Extra section | One open question | Risks raised, and the check-in rhythm | Parked topics, with an owner |
| Send to | Everyone from their side who was on the call | Everyone invited, both sides, plus the client sponsor | Attendees, plus anyone with an action who missed it |
| Send by | Same day | Same day | Within one working day |
What to leave out, following the Michigan State guide's list of what minutes should not include: detailed discussion, personal opinions, and full reports. Link to reports and recordings instead of pasting them. The same guide advises clear, neutral language and getting consent from attendees if you record a meeting to help with notes.
Meeting recap email examples you can copy
Three templates, one per meeting type. Northwind Ltd is a sample company and Priya at Acme a sample buyer; replace everything in brackets.
A sales recap is short because its job is to confirm the next step. What to do in the first hour after the call, and how to handle "we'll circle back", is in our guide to the first 24 hours after a sales call.
The kickoff recap is the longest of the three because it becomes the reference everyone goes back to. The sections mirror the agenda in our guide to running a project kickoff meeting, so the recap is quick to fill if you ran it that way.
How soon should you send a meeting recap?
Send client and sales recaps the same day, and internal ones within one working day. Keep the email to what fits on a phone screen, and put the detail behind a link. Those are our rules; we found no study that tests recap timing.
The bigger risk is the recap taking so long to write that it slips. We read three threads from April 2026 about writing up meetings. The poster of an r/projectmanagement thread said typing up minutes for a one-hour meeting takes them 2 to 4 hours, while their manager sends minutes about 30 minutes after a meeting. One reply, from a senior program manager, said it takes them about fifteen minutes to type up and send minutes with actions for an hour-long meeting, writing by hand on a printed agenda. Another said: "Just focus on action items- who will do what by when." Here's what that gap costs over a week of five one-hour meetings:
| Write-up time per meeting | Five meetings a week |
|---|---|
| 2 to 4 hours (the thread's poster) | 5 × 2 = 10 hours to 5 × 4 = 20 hours |
| Up to 30 minutes (the poster's manager sends minutes 30 minutes after the meeting) | Up to 5 × 30 = 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours |
| 15 minutes (one commenter) | 5 × 15 = 75 minutes, or 1 hour 15 minutes |
In a second thread, from someone who runs meetings and can't reconstruct the decisions twenty minutes later, replies suggested writing during the meeting, recording where allowed, or naming a note-taker. One reply suggested using the last five minutes to read back actions and owners and ask whether anything was missed. In an r/consulting thread about a monthly recap to partners, one commenter put the bottom line and fewer than five action items first, and said senior partners don't usually read past the first five bullet points. These are a few practitioners' habits.
The fix we'd take from them: type the five-line skeleton into the agenda before the meeting, fill it as you go, and read it back before everyone leaves. The readback is covered in our guide to meeting notes that turn into actions.
Who is responsible for taking meeting minutes?
The Michigan State guide, based on Robert's Rules, treats the minutes as the secretary's: it says they should not reflect the secretary's personal opinion. In a small team there is no secretary, so decide before the meeting starts. Our rule is that the person who called the meeting owns the recap, even if someone else types the notes, because they know what the meeting was for.
- Sales call: whoever runs the call. The buyer should hear from the person they spoke to.
- Client kickoff: the project lead on your side. Ask the client lead to check it before it goes to their sponsor.
- Recurring internal meeting: rotate the note-taker each week, and keep the person running it as the sender, so facilitating and writing aren't one person's job.
Whoever sends it is responsible for it, including anything an AI notetaker drafted.
How do you see a meeting recap in Teams?
Open the meeting chat after the meeting and select Recap. Per Microsoft's Recap in Teams help page (checked 5 Nov 2026):
- Desktop: select View recap on the event thumbnail in the meeting chat, or select Recap in the chat after the meeting ends. You can open it in a separate window.
- Mobile: open the meeting chat and tap Apps, then Recap, or tap the recording or transcript thumbnail.
- To email the AI summary (desktop): in the meeting chat select Recap, then Share, then Share to email. Teams drafts an Outlook email with the summary and follow-up tasks, addressed to the people invited. Edit it for accuracy, adjust the recipients, and send. The page says meeting organisers, co-organisers and presenters can start a recap email.
The edge cases, from the same page: recaps appear only for meetings that were recorded or transcribed; the AI summary needs a Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot licence and a meeting of five minutes or more; and recap notifications, notes and content aren't currently available for ad-hoc events. Microsoft also warns that AI-generated content might be inaccurate or incomplete. Only people in your organisation who were invited can open the intelligent recap; anyone outside it can't, even with the recording link, so to give a client the summary, email it. Microsoft's admin documentation describes that route for external attendees: Share, then Share via Outlook, in the Recap tab.
Can Google Meet summarize a meeting?
Yes. Google Meet's "Take notes for me" writes meeting notes into a Google Doc, but it needs an eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan. Per Google's Meet help page (checked 5 Nov 2026; the steps are written for a computer):
- Start it from the Calendar event, from the green room before you join, or with Take notes for me at the top right of the meeting screen. Google recommends it for meetings of 15 minutes to 8 hours.
- Hosts choose who gets the notes: all invited guests including people outside the organisation, invited guests in the organisation, or hosts and co-hosts only. Invited guests means everyone on the Calendar invite, not just those who attended.
- The doc has a Quick notes tab with the main takeaways and action items, and a Full notes tab with the summary, decisions, action items and details. The page lists a Decisions section that tracks each outcome as Aligned, Needs Further Discussions, Disagreed or Shelved; Beta users can choose which sections to include.
- The organiser gets an email with a link shortly after the meeting ends.
- Who can start it: the organiser and participants inside the host's organisation, or only the organiser, hosts and co-hosts when host controls are on. The organiser's Workspace edition must include the feature, so if a client hosts the call, you can't start it as an outside guest.
Treat either tool's output as a draft. Sharing the whole notes doc with a client is a different thing from sending a recap you have checked: pull the five lines from it, check the actions against what you remember, and send those. If you'd rather not have a bot in the call, Siela's meeting notes record on your own device in the desktop app and pull out decisions, owners and follow-ups.
This week: paste the five-line skeleton into your next three meeting agendas and send each recap before you open your inbox.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between meeting minutes and a meeting recap?
Minutes are the formal record of a meeting, usually for boards and committees, and list motions, votes and decisions in a set format before being approved at the next meeting. A recap is an informal email for the people involved: the bottom line, decisions, actions with owners and dates, and the next meeting. Most small teams only need the recap.
Should a meeting recap go to people who didn't attend?
Send it to anyone who has an action or whose work a decision changes, even if they missed the meeting, and say in one line why they're receiving it. Leave off people who only need to know the meeting happened. For a client meeting, ask your main contact before adding their senior people.
How long should a meeting recap email be?
Short enough to read on a phone without scrolling much: a one-sentence bottom line, then decisions, actions and open questions as single lines. A kickoff recap can run longer because people will refer back to it. Put long notes, slides and recordings behind a link instead of in the email body.
What subject line should a meeting recap use?
Name the meeting and the date, and say what's inside, for example the project name with kickoff decisions and owners, or the meeting name with the number of decisions and actions. People search their inbox for these weeks later, so the meeting name matters more than a clever line.
Should you reply to the meeting invite with the recap?
If your team keeps meeting threads together, replying to the invite or to the email that set up the meeting keeps the history in one place. For a client kickoff, a fresh email with a clear subject is easier to find later and to forward to people who weren't on the invite.
Sources
- Michigan State University Academic Governance: Writing Minutes (quoting Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 12th ed., §48) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Microsoft WorkLab: Work Trend Index 2023, Will AI Fix Work? (published 9 May 2023, checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Microsoft Support: Recap in Microsoft Teams (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Microsoft Learn: Intelligent recap for Teams calls and meetings (admin) (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- Google Meet Help: "Take notes for me" in Google Meet (checked 5 Nov 2026)
- r/projectmanagement: How to type up minutes quickly? (5 Apr 2026, checked 5 Nov 2026)
- r/projectmanagement: I run the meeting, know all the decisions, and can't reconstruct them twenty minutes later (16 Apr 2026, checked 5 Nov 2026)
- r/consulting: Monthly meeting recap ? (help) (5 Apr 2026, checked 5 Nov 2026)