How to Use Fireflies: A Quick Start Guideline in 2025

Are your meetings a mess? Do you often forget what was said or what you needed to do?

Trying to take notes and pay attention at the same time is super tough.

You end up missing important stuff or spending hours writing things down after the meeting.

This guide will show you exactly how to use Fireflies AI. 

You’ll learn how to set it up fast and let it handle your meeting notes so that you can focus on the conversation.

Getting Started

Ready to get Fireflies AI working for you? It’s pretty simple to set up. Let’s walk through it step-by-step.

• Signing Up is Easy
  • First, visit the fireflies.ai website.
  • You’ll see options to create an account. You can sign up using your Google or Outlook account or just your email address.
  • Quick Tip: Using your work email is often best. It helps Fireflies AI connect smoothly with your work calendar.
• Connecting Your Calendar
  • After signing up, connect your calendar. Fireflies AI works well with both Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.
  • This step is important because, once connected, the Fireflies AI Notetaker can automatically join your scheduled meetings.
  • It permits Fireflies AI to see your meeting invites, so it knows when to join.
• Picking Your First Settings
  • You’ll tell Fireflies AI how you want it to work. Choose from these initial settings:
    • Who should Fireflies AI join? You can pick if it joins all your meetings, only meetings you schedule, or if it waits for you to invite it to specific meetings.
    • Notifications: Decide how often Fireflies AI sends you updates, like emails with the meeting transcript.
    • Transcription Language: Pick the language you use most for your meetings. Fireflies AI can transcribe in many languages.
  • These settings help Fireflies AI summarize your calls and provide an accurate transcription tailored to your needs. You can always change them later!

Your First Meeting: Inviting Fireflies AI to Record

Now that your Fireflies AI account is set up, let’s get it into a meeting. This is where the magic happens!

1. Automatic Join 

If you connected your calendar, Fireflies AI can join meetings all by itself. This is super handy!

• How it Works: When a meeting is about to start, you’ll often see a new participant join called “Fireflies.ai Notetaker.” This means it’s there and ready to go.
• Let People Know: It’s a good idea to tell everyone in the meeting that Fireflies AI is recording. A quick “So that you know, Fireflies AI is here to help with notes” is perfect.

2. Manual Invitation

Sometimes, Fireflies AI won’t join automatically. Maybe it’s a last-minute call or a meeting without a calendar invite. No problem! You can invite it manually.

• How to Invite: Just add [email protected] as a participant to your meeting. Treat it like inviting any other person.
• Works with Major Platforms: Whether you’re using Google Meet, Zoom, or another video call app, just add that email. Make sure the meeting link is open for Fireflies AI to join.

3. Controlling the Recording During a Meeting

Once Fireflies AI is in your meeting, you have some control.

• Pause and Resume: If you need to have a private chat or just want a break from recording, you can pause Fireflies AI. You can then resume it when you’re ready.
• Stop Early: If the meeting ends sooner than planned, or you decide you don’t need the recording anymore, you can stop Fireflies AI.
• Check Status: You’ll usually see an icon or message telling you if Fireflies AI is recording, paused, or stopped.

Important Things to Remember

Here are a few tips to make sure your first recording goes smoothly:

• Always Get Permission: Before recording, always let everyone know that Fireflies AI is joining and recording the meeting. This is important for trust and legal reasons.
• Clear Sound Helps: The better the sound quality in your meeting, the better the meeting transcription will be. Try to use a good microphone and reduce background noise.
• Find Your Notes Later: After the meeting, Fireflies AI will process everything. You’ll then be able to find the full meeting transcription and a summary in your Fireflies notebook. This notebook is where you’ll also find the action items Fireflies AI helps pick out.

This step-by-step guide should make inviting Fireflies AI to your first meeting a breeze!

Navigating Your Meeting Playback and Transcripts

Okay, your meeting is over, and Fireflies AI has done its job! Now.

Let’s look at all the cool things it created for you.

1. Finding Your Meeting Summary

After a meeting, Fireflies AI gets to work. It will send you an email with a link to your meeting summaries.

You can also just log into your Fireflies AI account.

• Your Dashboard: This is like your main control center. Here, you’ll see a list of all your recorded meetings, each with its own special page.

Looking at the Transcript

This is where you’ll find every single word spoken in your meeting.

• Interactive Transcript: The AI transcription isn’t just plain text. It’s interactive! You can click on any sentence, and the meeting recording will jump to that exact part. This is super helpful if you want to re-listen to something specific.
• Who Said What?: Fireflies AI tries its best to know who is speaking. It will show speaker names next to their words. If it makes a mistake, you can easily change the speaker’s name to fix it.
• Fixing Mistakes: Sometimes, the AI transcription might have a typo, especially with tricky names or words. You can easily click and edit the text to make it perfect.

2. Searching and Finding Information Fast

One of the best parts about Fireflies AI is how easy it is to find information.

• Keyword Search: Need to find when someone mentioned “budget” or “next steps”? Just type that word into the search bar. Fireflies AI will show you every time it was said.
• Smart Filters: Fireflies AI is a smart meeting assistant. It can automatically spot things like:
  • Action Items: What do we need to do?
  • Questions: What questions were asked?
  • Metrics: Were any numbers or data discussed?
  • This helps you jump straight to the most important parts.
• Custom Topics: You can even tell Fireflies AI to look for your own special words or phrases. If your team always talks about “Project Phoenix,” you can make that a custom topic to find easily.

Creating and Sharing “Soundbites”

Found a really important part of the meeting recording? Maybe a brilliant idea or a clear decision?

• Make a Clip: You can highlight a section of the transcript and turn it into a soundbite clip. This is a short audio snippet.
• Share Easily: These clips are great for sharing with teammates who missed the meeting or just need a quick reminder of a specific point. No need for them to listen to the whole thing!

3. Sharing and Working Together

Fireflies AI makes it simple to share your meeting insights.

• Share with Colleagues: You can send the full meeting recording, transcript, and summaries to others. You control who can see it.
• Integrate with Other Tools: Fireflies AI can even send information to other apps you use, like Slack or project management tools. This keeps everyone on the same page.
• For Quick Access: You might even consider installing the Fireflies AI Chrome extension to easily access your recordings and summaries directly from your browser. It acts like a quick shortcut to your helpful meeting assistant.

Leveraging Advanced Features

Fireflies AI isn’t just for basic notes. It has some really cool features that can boost your productivity.

Let’s look at how to use them.

1. Smart Summaries by AI

Fireflies AI doesn’t just give you a full transcript. It also creates smart summaries.

• Automated Digests: These summaries give you the main points of the meeting. They highlight things like action items, important topics, and keywords.
• Save Time: Think of these as a super-fast way to catch up. You can quickly see the most important takeaways without reading everything. They’re a great starting point for your meeting minutes.

2. Sound Bites & Short Clips

Found a moment in the meeting that’s golden? You can save it!

• Create Clips: You can pick any part of the meeting recording and turn it into a short audio clip.
• Share Insights: These “sound bites” are perfect for sharing specific ideas or decisions with someone who needs to hear it directly. For example, if a client made a particular request, you can send just that clip.

3. Commenting and Reactions

Working with your team on a transcript is easy.

• Add Comments: You can type comments directly onto the transcript. This is great for asking questions about a specific point or adding extra context.
• Emoji Reactions: Use emojis (like a thumbs-up or a question mark) next to parts of the conversation. This makes it simple to highlight agreement or confusion. This really helps with follow-up.

4. Integrations: Connecting Fireflies AI to Your Other Tools

Fireflies AI plays nicely with many other apps you use every day.

• Popular Connections: It links with tools like Slack, Salesforce, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
• Smooth Workflow: Connecting them smooths your workflow. For instance, Fireflies AI can automatically send meeting summaries to a Slack channel. This keeps all your information in one place and avoids jumping between apps.

5. The Fireflies Chrome Extension

Don’t forget the Fireflies Chrome extension!

• Quick Access: It sits right in your web browser. This gives you fast access to your recordings and helps you quickly invite Fireflies AI to meetings, even if they aren’t on your calendar.
• Boost Productivity: It’s just another way this helpful tool helps you transcribe your meetings and manage your time better.

These advanced features truly make Fireflies AI more than a transcriber.

They make it a powerful tool for managing your entire meeting workflow and improving your overall productivity.

Best Practices for Maximizing Fireflies AI

Getting the most out of Fireflies AI is easy once you know a few tricks.

These tips will help you make sure your future meetings are even more productive.

1. Clear Audio is Gold

This is probably the most important tip.

• Good Sound = Good Transcript: The better the sound quality in your meeting, the better Fireflies AI can transcribe calls.
• Simple Fixes: Use a good microphone if you have one. Try to meet in a quiet place. Ask everyone to speak clearly. This helps the AI transcription be super accurate.

2. Always Inform Participants

It’s just good manners, and sometimes it’s even a rule.

• Be Transparent: Always tell everyone at the start of the meeting that Fireflies AI is recording. A quick heads-up like, “Just letting you know, Fireflies AI is here to take notes,” is perfect.
• Build Trust: People feel more comfortable when they know what’s happening.

Review and Refine

Fireflies AI is very good, but it’s not perfect.

• Quick Check: Spend a few minutes after a meeting to quickly look over the transcript.
• Fix Small Errors: You might need to correct a name or a technical term. Making these small edits helps keep your records accurate and searchable.

3. Integrate into Your Workflow

Don’t just use Fireflies AI sometimes. Make it a regular habit.

• Consistent Use: Use it for all your important meetings. The more you use it, the more you’ll trust it.
• Smooth Process: When it becomes part of your routine, it will seamlessly fit into how you work.

4. Experiment with Features

Fireflies AI has many powerful tools. Don’t be afraid to try them!

• Explore: Click around and try out different features.
• Find What Works: See how the AI filters can help you find patterns. Play with asked questions to get quick answers from your meetings. You might find a new favorite way to use it!

By following these simple steps, you’ll maximize the power of Fireflies AI.

You’ll make your future meetings more effective, keep your notes perfectly searchable.

And truly transcribe calls in a way that boosts your overall efficiency.

Conclusion

You’ve learned how powerful Fireflies AI can be. It’s much more than just a note-taker.

This means you can truly listen and take part without worrying about notes.

With features like Ask Fred and topic trackers, finding key information is simple.

You can jump to important sections, get answers, and even create tasks right from your conversations.

Start using Fireflies AI today.

Let this smart tool handle the heavy lifting. 

Alternatives to Fireflies

Here are some other tools that offer similar or related features to Fireflies AI:

• Sembly: An AI meeting assistant that captures, transcribes, and analyzes team conversations, offering insights beyond simple notes.
• Notion: An AI writing assistant built into the Notion workspace, useful for summarizing, drafting, and organizing various types of content.
• ClickUp: A project management tool with integrated AI capabilities to help organize and summarize meeting outcomes and centralize work.
• Capacities: A personal knowledge management tool that focuses on interconnected notes and object-based organization, rather than meeting automation.
• Taskade: A collaborative workspace with built-in AI for task management, note-taking, and project planning, converting discussions into actionable plans.
• Notejoy: A fast and simple collaborative note-taking app designed for quick sharing and discussion of notes within teams.
• Notta: An AI assistant that focuses on converting spoken words into text, known for real-time transcription and multilingual support.
• Craft: A document editor that combines note-taking with document creation, offering a versatile space for structured and creative content.
• MeetGeek: An AI-powered meeting assistant that records video, transcribes discussions, and generates detailed meeting summaries and insights.
• Mem AI: An AI-powered note-taking app that helps organize information effortlessly with intelligent search and connections.
• Evernote: A widely used note-taking app for capturing, organizing, and finding information, though it’s less focused on automated meeting transcription.
• Microsoft OneNote: A flexible digital notebook allowing freeform note-taking with typing, drawing, and media integration, especially good for Microsoft users.

Frequently Asked Questions