Question: How do I configure Google Meet and what technical preparations are needed?
Explanation: Google Meet is the video conferencing service built into Google Workspace. It works from any browser (no installation required), supports meetings with up to thousands of participants (depending on licence), and integrates with Calendar, Gmail, Drive and since 2025 with Gemini AI for automatic transcripts, summaries and notes.
Under the hood Meet runs on a WebRTC foundation with SRTP encryption, end-to-end TLS for all connections, and automatic fallback from UDP to TCP when the network blocks UDP. That makes Meet quite robust, but for optimal quality your network, bandwidth and firewall configuration do need to be right.
What can Google Meet do compared to other video platforms?
- Browser-native, no software installation required, not even for external guests.
- Up to 1,000 participants per meeting in Enterprise, 500 in Business Plus, 150 in Business Standard, 100 in Business Starter.
- Unlimited meeting duration for paid licences (free accounts: 60 minute max per group call).
- End-to-end encrypted connections with option for client-side encryption (Enterprise Plus).
- Live captions in more than 70 languages.
- Live translation between English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.
- Adaptive audio for multiple laptops in the same room without echo.
- Companion mode for room participants who want to use their laptop without duplicate audio.
- Gemini AI for automatic notes ("Take notes for me"), summaries and asking questions about recordings.
- REST API and Workspace Events API for programmatic integration with your own systems.
Important change effective 30 April 2026
Google is changing the default setting for downloading recordings. From that date participants can download and copy recordings by default. Want to restrict that? Disable the option Let users download and copy Meet recordings in the Admin Console before 30 April 2026. The change applies only to new recordings; existing ones stay as they are. In addition, Ask Gemini in recordings is automatically disabled when downloads are blocked.
Features per Workspace licence:
| Feature | Business Starter | Business Standard | Business Plus | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum participants | 100 | 150 | 500 | 1,000 |
| Record meetings | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic recording as default | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Transcripts | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Take notes for me (Gemini) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Attendance tracking | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Breakout rooms | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Polls and Q&A | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live streaming (in-org) | No | No | No | Yes (100,000 viewers) |
| Client-side encryption | No | No | No | Yes (Enterprise Plus) |
| Noise cancellation | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Since January 2025 Gemini AI is built into Business Standard and higher by default without a separate add-on. For additional AI capacity an AI Ultra for Business add-on has been available since June 2025 (higher usage limits and more advanced models).
Technical requirements: network and bandwidth
Bandwidth per participant
Meet dynamically scales video quality to available bandwidth. When there's too little, Meet automatically falls back to lower resolution or audio-only. The thresholds Google works with:
| Scenario | Outbound (upload) | Inbound (download) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audio only | 32 kbps | 32 kbps | Works on virtually any connection |
| SD video (360p) | 600 kbps | 1 Mbps | Acceptable for 1:1 or small group |
| HD video (720p) | 1.8 Mbps | 2.6 Mbps | Standard for group meetings |
| Full HD (1080p) | 2.6 Mbps | 3.2 Mbps | Required for presenter mode |
| Screen share (still) | 250 kbps | 250 kbps | Static screen, no video |
| Screen share (motion) | 1 Mbps | 2 Mbps | Moving screen like showing video |
| Group meeting 10+ | 1.8 Mbps | 4-6 Mbps | Scales with number of video streams |
| Live streaming viewer | n/a | 2.6 Mbps | Per viewer in a streamed event |
For Meet Hardware (Chromebox-based room devices) stricter requirements apply:
- Minimum 1 Mbps outbound always required.
- For HD quality at least 3.2 Mbps inbound recommended.
- Latency to Google's public DNS (8.8.8.8) must be below 50 ms, otherwise stuttering occurs.
- Packet loss must stay below 1%.
- Jitter below 30 ms.
Bandwidth planning for a whole organisation
For capacity planning Google uses two scenarios:
- Meet is high priority: estimate that around 20% of your staff are in Meet at the same time.
- Meet is low priority: estimate around 0.5% concurrent.
Example calculation for an organisation of 200 staff where Meet is central:
- 200 staff × 20% peak = 40 simultaneous participants.
- 40 × 2.6 Mbps inbound HD = 104 Mbps downstream minimum.
- 40 × 1.8 Mbps outbound HD = 72 Mbps upstream minimum.
Add 30-50% buffer on top for screen sharing, live streaming and other services. Asymmetric connections (often much more down than up) are a common cause of poor meeting quality with multiple concurrent sessions; always check your upload speed.
Firewall and network ports
Meet uses a fixed set of ports and endpoints you need to allow:
Outbound UDP ports (for media):
- UDP 3478: STUN/TURN for NAT traversal.
- UDP 19302-19309: WebRTC media streams.
- UDP 443: fallback for media when 19302-19309 is blocked.
Outbound TCP ports:
- TCP 443: web traffic, signaling and authentication.
- TCP 80: HTTP redirects and initial connection setup.
URI allowlist (for proxy/filter configuration):
- meet.google.com and all its subdomains
- *.googleusercontent.com (artifacts and avatars)
- apis.google.com (Google APIs)
- accounts.google.com (authentication)
- calendar.google.com (Calendar integration)
- drive.google.com (recording storage)
DNS / SNI allowlisting: when you have an outbound firewall that filters on SNI, add Meet's SNI and Google Workspace IP ranges. Google publishes these ranges; they change periodically, so don't base production firewalls on static IP lists.
Blocking UDP is not an option
When UDP is fully blocked, Meet falls back to TCP tunneling via port 443. It works, but costs noticeable quality and increases latency. For good meeting quality at least UDP 3478 and 19302-19309 should be open. Also TCP fallback uses more bandwidth than UDP for the same quality, because WebRTC overhead is higher.
Solution:
1
Open Google Meet settings in the Admin Console
Sign in to admin.google.com with an account that has the Service Settings administrator role.
Navigate to:
Here you'll find two sections: Meet video settings for all meeting settings, and Service status to enable or disable Meet per OU.
2
Configure your network and firewall
Before rollout run a network check:
- Test upload and download speed in the office (use meet.google.com/check for an integrated test).
- Configure your firewall per the ports and URI list above.
- Activate QoS rules on your network equipment to prioritise Meet traffic over bulk traffic like backups and downloads. Mark Meet traffic with DSCP 46 (EF) for audio and DSCP 34 (AF41) for video.
- For offices with Meet Hardware: prefer wired ethernet over Wi-Fi to minimise jitter and packet loss.
The Meet Quality Tool in the Admin Console () shows per-meeting quality stats: average packet loss, jitter, audio and video bitrate per participant, and connection type (UDP versus TCP fallback). Use this to identify problem offices or users.
3
Set video, recording and participant options
Under Meet video settings:
- Video calling: on or off per OU.
- Meeting safety: determines whether host controls are enforced and how external participants enter.
- External participants: go for "Ask to join" (lobby flow) unless you have a specific reason.
- Recording: enable Let people record their meetings and decide whether Automatic recording is on by default.
- Meeting transcripts: set to On and optionally Automatic transcription for new meetings.
- Default video resolution: set browser default to Standard Definition (360p) when bandwidth is tight. Users can still increase it themselves.
For Take notes for me (Gemini):
Enable for the desired OU. Meetings can then per Calendar invite toggle the notes feature via Video call options > Meeting records.
4
Create a meeting room in Calendar (Resource)
Meeting rooms are managed in Google Workspace as Calendar Resources. A resource has its own calendar, can be booked in meeting invites, and can be linked to a Meet Hardware device.
In the Admin Console go to:
- Click Add resource.
- Fill in the hierarchy: Building (required), Floor (recommended), Section (optional) and Resource name.
- Set the Resource type to Meeting space. Other options are Other for things like a car, phone booth or whiteboard.
- Fill in the Capacity (number of seats). Important for automatic room suggestions based on meeting size.
- Tick Features: video conferencing, screen, whiteboard, phone system, wheelchair accessible.
- Give the room a recognisable Resource description.
- Set the Building time zone, otherwise statistics in the Room Insights reports will be wrong.
Resource naming convention
Google uses a structured name internally: Building-Floor-Section-Name (Capacity) [Features]. For example: HQ-3-North-Meeting Room Mercury (8) [video]. Calendar uses this structure to automatically suggest relevant rooms based on the location of participants, with the Room Suggestions feature showing the right rooms based on attendees' working location.
Want Google to automatically suggest the right room based on participant location? Make sure:
- Every employee has a Working location set in Calendar.
- Resources have a structured name (building + floor + section).
- Capacity is filled in so rooms that are too small aren't suggested.
5
Link a Meet Hardware device to a room
For rooms with physical meeting hardware (Logitech Rally, Poly Studio, Cisco Webex Room, Lenovo ThinkSmart):
In the Admin Console go to:
- Click Add device (the first time devices are usually enrolled from the device itself with an enrollment code).
- Assign the device to the Calendar Resource (the room you created in step 4).
- Configure a Device profile: whether the device should auto-join booked meetings, whether it stays in DND after hours, restart policy.
- Under Networks you can push a Wi-Fi or Ethernet configuration per device, including proxy settings and static IP assignments.
- Activate Occupancy detection if the device supports it: the room device then detects via the camera how many people are in the room, feeding into the Room Insights Dashboard.
Meet Hardware requires an active Google Workspace licence on a linked account, plus a Meet Hardware licence per device. Accounts like "scanner@", "frontdesk@" or "boardroom@yourdomain.com" with their own Workspace seat are often used to link devices, separate from personal accounts.
6
Set host controls and moderation
- Host management: keep on by default so hosts can mute, remove or admit participants via the lobby.
- Quick Stop: disables recording and transcription for everyone at once, useful when a meeting unexpectedly turns personal.
- Co-hosts: up to 25 co-hosts per meeting, all with the same rights as the host.
- Trusted domains: for stricter security set a trusted-domain list in . Only external users from those domains can join.
For Enterprise Plus there's also Client-side encryption (CSE): meetings are encrypted with a key your organisation manages via an external identity provider, not via Google. This means Google has no access to the meeting content, including the recording.
7
Integrate Meet with your own systems via the API
For organisations integrating Meet with their own tools (CRM, helpdesk, scheduling platform) there's the Meet REST API and the Workspace Events API.
Meet REST API: what can you do?
- Manage spaces: create a new meeting space (without a Calendar event), modify existing spaces, pre-configure participants. Endpoint: POST https://meet.googleapis.com/v2/spaces.
- Get conference records: after a meeting you can fetch metadata like start and end time, participant list and who hosted. Endpoint: GET https://meet.googleapis.com/v2/conferenceRecords.
- Fetch artifacts: download recordings, transcripts and transcript entries via the API. Files themselves are in Drive, the API gives you the Drive file ID.
- Moderation settings and permissions can be pre-set programmatically, including auto-recording, auto-transcription and "Take notes for me".
OAuth scope for setting auto-artifacts in meetings created by other apps: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/meetings.space.settings.
Workspace Events API: real-time notifications
Via Google Cloud Pub/Sub you can get notified of events in Meet. Available event types:
- google.workspace.meet.conference.v2.started (meeting started)
- google.workspace.meet.conference.v2.ended (meeting ended)
- google.workspace.meet.participant.v2.joined (participant joined)
- google.workspace.meet.participant.v2.left (participant left)
- google.workspace.meet.recording.v2.fileGenerated (recording ready)
- google.workspace.meet.transcript.v2.fileGenerated (transcript ready)
Setup: create a Pub/Sub topic and subscription in Google Cloud, authorise your service account, and subscribe via the Workspace Events API to a specific meeting space or to all spaces of a user. With each event you get a JSON payload with the meeting context, which you can route to a Slack channel, CRM update or your own dashboard.
Meet Add-ons SDK for custom in-meeting apps
Generally available since 2024: the Meet Add-ons SDK lets you embed your own app in the Meet interface as a Google Workspace Add-on. During a meeting participants can start the add-on via the Activities menu and have a shared experience (whiteboard, poll, collaborative document editor, ticketing-system integration).
Use cases:
- A sales rep starts a product demo add-on during a customer call that shows live CRM data.
- A trainer starts a quiz add-on where participants answer simultaneously.
- A helpdesk agent opens a ticket add-on to create a ticket directly during the call.
8
Monitor with logs and the Room Insights Dashboard
For diagnostics and capacity planning:
- Meet log events (): per meeting who joined, error codes, connection type, devices used.
- Meet Quality Tool (): media statistics like packet loss, jitter, bitrate per participant.
- Room Insights Dashboard (Business Plus and higher): shows how often each room is booked, no-shows (booked but empty), occupancy rates, and average meeting duration per room. Requires resources set to type "Meeting space" and a correct building time zone.
- Security Center alerts (Enterprise): notifies of anomalies like abnormally high external participation or recording downloads.
Specific features and use cases
Breakout rooms for workshops and training
Available from Business Standard. Up to 100 breakout rooms per meeting. Under the hood breakout rooms are separate sub-meetings with their own meeting ID, linked to the main session via host management. Participants are temporarily moved and automatically called back when the host's timer ends or they click "Bring everyone back".
Live streaming for town halls and public events
Enterprise only. Stream a meeting to up to 100,000 viewers within your organisation. Viewers see a one-way feed (can't speak), can chat and use Q&A. For very large streams (10,000+) strongly recommend using eCDN: an edge-caching layer that duplicates the stream inside your network instead of every viewer downloading the stream from Google individually. This drastically reduces bandwidth from your internet connection.
Polls, Q&A and hand raising
- Polls: quick question with multiple answer options, anonymous voting possible. Activate via Activities menu. Up to 10 answer options per question.
- Q&A: participants submit questions that can be upvoted. The host answers in order of popularity. Results saved in a Q&A report sent to the host after the meeting.
- Hand raising: built-in button in the toolbar. Works for all licences, including free Meet.
Attendance tracking (Business Plus and higher)
Activate via . Host must also tick per meeting in the Calendar invite. After the meeting the organiser receives a CSV attachment: name, email address, total attendance duration and number of joins/leaves. Useful for training, all-hands and compliance.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
- Confusing recording, transcript and notes. Three separate features. A recording is video, a transcript is verbatim text, Take notes for me is a Gemini summary. Activate all three separately if you want all three.
- Fully blocking UDP on the corporate network. When UDP 3478 and 19302-19309 are blocked, Meet falls back to TCP tunneling via 443. It works, but costs noticeable quality. For good meeting quality UDP must be open.
- No QoS rules on network equipment. Without prioritisation for Meet traffic, bulk downloads and backups will compete on a busy network. Mark Meet audio with DSCP 46 (EF) and video with DSCP 34 (AF41).
- Underestimating asymmetric internet connections. Many connections have ten times more download than upload bandwidth. For Meet upload is just as important, especially when multiple staff are presenting or streaming simultaneously.
- Creating resources without a structured name. When a room is called "Meeting Room 1" without building, floor or capacity, Calendar can't use it for automatic suggestions. Always follow the Building-Floor-Section-Name pattern.
- Not setting the building time zone. Without a time zone on a resource no statistic in the Room Insights Dashboard is correct. Verify this for every new location.
- Trying Take notes for me for multilingual meetings. Gemini notes support one language per meeting. For international calls with multiple languages notes become unreliable; agree on one primary language upfront.
- Default "Anyone with the link" for internal meetings. That lets any anonymous visitor with the link in. Use "Ask to join" for most meetings and reserve "Anyone" for public webinars.
- Forgetting Companion mode in physical rooms. When three people in the same room fully join via laptops alongside a Meet Hardware device, you get echo and feedback. Steer teams to Companion mode in rooms with hardware.
- Not monitoring Pub/Sub topics for API integrations. When you receive events via the Workspace Events API, a dead-letter queue can fill up and events get lost. Configure acknowledgement deadlines, retry policies and dead-letter topics properly.
