Google Meet live translation with answer drafts from your files
Google Meet runs in a browser tab, and its audio goes to the same output device as everything else on your Mac. That is what Subtl reads. There is no Meet add-on to install, no Workspace admin approval to get, and nothing appears in the meeting for the other participants.
Google's own live translated captions cover translation inside Meet. Subtl adds the part Meet does not have: a draft of what you could say back, written in the other person's language and grounded in the documents you attached before the call.
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Setting it up with Google Meet
- 01
Keep Meet in one window
Any browser works — Chrome, Safari, Arc, Edge. Subtl captures the system output, not the tab, so you can move between tabs without losing the audio.
- 02
Pick the language pair, or leave detection on
The default detects the incoming language and translates into yours. Set it explicitly when the call switches between two languages you both speak.
- 03
Start the session and place the overlay
⌥⌘S starts listening. Drag the overlay to the side of the Meet grid you look at least; in sidebar mode it takes a fixed column and stops covering faces.
What works
- Meet in any desktop browser on macOS, including calls you join as a guest without a Google account.
- Meet's own captions and live translation can run at the same time — Subtl reads audio, not the caption track.
- Presenting your screen: the overlay carries the content-protection flag, so what you share does not include it.
- Calls where several people speak in turn; channels are split into 'the room' and 'you', not into individual speakers.
What it does not do
- Speaker diarisation is by channel, not by person, so two people talking over each other on the far side arrive as one stream.
- Subtl reads no Meet metadata: no participant names, no chat, no captions track.
- Use headphones. Subtl reads the speaker channel and your microphone separately, and without headphones your microphone picks up the other person through the speakers, which blurs the two channels.
Questions about Google Meet
How is this different from Google Meet's built-in live translation?
Meet translates speech inside Meet. Subtl works in every call app on your machine, shows the original and the translation together, and drafts an answer using the documents you gave it. If you only ever use Meet and only need to understand, Meet's own feature may be enough.
Do I need a Google Workspace admin to enable anything?
No. Subtl is not a Meet add-on and does not connect to your Google account. It never appears in the Workspace admin console because it never talks to Google Meet.
Will Meet show the other participants that captions or translation are on?
Meet shows its own captions only to the person who enabled them, and Subtl is outside Meet entirely, so it shows nothing to anyone else.
Can I use it on a Chromebook or on Linux?
Not yet. The desktop app is macOS today; a Windows build is next. There is no Chrome extension, because an extension could not read system audio the way this needs to.
Does the answer draft use the deck I am presenting?
It uses the files you attached to the meeting preset, which is usually that same deck. It does not read the window you are presenting.