How do I turn off Otter AI?
To stop Otter joining your calls, open Otter's Meetings tab, go to the AI Notetaker settings, and switch auto-join to "Meetings I manually select." To stop it completely, disconnect your calendar under Account Settings, then Integrations. Otter joins because it reads your calendar, so disconnecting the calendar is the real off switch.
Why — the first-principles explanation
The single most useful thing to understand is this: Otter isn't triggered by you — it's triggered by your calendar. When you connected your Google or Outlook account, you gave Otter standing permission to scan every event you're invited to, spot the meeting links, and dispatch its Notetaker bot to join. That permission is calendar-wide and open-ended. It doesn't ask each morning. This is why kicking the bot out of one meeting does nothing for tomorrow's, and why people describe Otter as "joining uninvited" — from Otter's side it was invited, by an integration you approved once and forgot.
So "turning off Otter" isn't one switch, it's four, and they differ in how much they actually cut. Skipping one meeting stops today's bot only. Setting auto-join to "Meetings I manually select" flips the default, so Otter waits to be asked instead of showing up by default — this is the setting most people actually want. Disconnecting your calendar removes Otter's ability to see your meetings at all, which is the genuine off switch. Deleting your account ends the relationship entirely. Pick the lightest one that solves your problem; there's no reason to nuke the account if you just want the bot to stop ambushing your standups.
Two things trip people up here. First, canceling billing and deleting your account are separate actions, and deleting doesn't cancel a paid plan for you — cancel the subscription first, or you can end up paying for an account you erased. Second, recording settings and sharing settings are different systems. Turning off auto-join stops new transcripts from being made; it does nothing to transcripts that already exist or that were already shared with a workspace or teammates. If your concern is who can read past meetings, that's a separate cleanup: export what you want, then delete what you don't.
There's also the case where the problem isn't your Otter at all — it's a colleague's bot sitting in your meeting. You can't reach into someone else's settings. What you can do is remove the Notetaker from the call if you're the host, since it appears in the participant list like any other attendee, and ask the organizer to turn off their auto-join. This is worth saying plainly because the bot's presence in a call reflects the organizer's configuration, not any decision by the other people on the line.
An example that makes it click
Think of Otter like a robot vacuum you put on a schedule and then forgot about. One Tuesday it runs while you're on a work call and drives you crazy, so you pick it up and switch it off. It runs again Wednesday — because you didn't touch the schedule, you touched the robot.
The four off switches map cleanly onto that vacuum. Switching it off mid-run is skipping one meeting. Deleting the schedule is turning off auto-join. Taking away the house key — so it can't get into the rooms at all — is disconnecting your calendar. Selling the vacuum is deleting your account. Almost everyone searching for how to turn Otter off actually wants the second or third one, and reaches for the first one over and over, wondering why it keeps coming back.
How to do it
- Stop it joining future meetings (what most people want): In Otter, open the Meetings tab, click the AI Notetaker settings, and choose "Meetings I manually select." You can also reach this under Integrations, on the Meetings tab, in the default auto-join settings.
- Skip a single meeting: Find the event in your Otter meeting list and toggle the Notetaker off for that event only. Manually toggled events keep their setting even if you change the default later.
- Cut it off at the source: Go to Account Settings, then Integrations, and click Disconnect next to your connected calendar. With no calendar access, the Notetaker cannot auto-join anything.
- Remove it from Zoom: If you installed the Otter app in Zoom, remove it from your Zoom account's installed apps — that's a separate connection from your calendar.
- Cancel any paid plan first: Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription for you. Cancel the paid plan before you delete anything.
- Export anything you want to keep: Download your transcripts as text or audio before deleting. Account deletion is permanent.
- Delete the account: Go to Account Settings, then General, scroll to the bottom, click Delete account, enter your password, and confirm.
- If it's someone else's Otter in your meeting: You can't change their settings. As host, remove the Otter Notetaker from the participant list, and ask the organizer to turn off their auto-join.
Key facts
- Otter's Notetaker auto-joins meetings based on events in a connected calendar, so it joins by default rather than asking per meeting (otter.ai, as of 2026-07).
- The Notetaker joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet as a visible participant, so it can be seen and removed from the participant list (as of 2026-07).
- Disconnecting your calendar under Account Settings > Integrations removes Otter's ability to auto-join any meeting.
- Deleting an Otter account does not cancel an active paid subscription — Pro runs $16.99/user/month and Business $30/user/month billed monthly (as of 2026-07), so cancel first.
- Turning off auto-join stops new recordings but does not delete or unshare transcripts that already exist.
- Otter also offers bot-free desktop recording on Mac and Windows, which records without sending a participant into the call.
Open the vendor's official settings or privacy guide and verify the change on the correct account.
▶ The 60-second explainer (script)
If Otter keeps showing up in your meetings, here's the thing to understand first: Otter isn't triggered by you. It's triggered by your calendar. When you connected Google or Outlook, you gave Otter standing permission to scan your events and send its bot to anything with a meeting link. That's why kicking it out of one call does nothing for tomorrow's. So there are four off switches, and you should pick the lightest one that solves your problem. One: skip a single meeting by toggling the Notetaker off on that event. Two — and this is what most people actually want — open the Meetings tab, go to AI Notetaker settings, and choose 'Meetings I manually select.' Now Otter waits to be asked instead of showing up by default. Three: the real off switch. Account Settings, then Integrations, then Disconnect next to your calendar. No calendar access means no auto-join, ever. Four: delete the account under Account Settings, General, at the bottom of the page. But cancel your paid plan first — deleting does not cancel billing for you, and export any transcripts you want to keep, because deletion is permanent. One last thing. If the bot in your meeting belongs to a coworker, you can't change their settings. Remove it from the participant list if you're the host, and ask them to turn off their auto-join.
What authoritative sources say
People also ask
Why does Otter keep joining meetings I never invited it to?
Because it's reading your connected calendar and auto-joining any event with a meeting link. It's following a permission you granted once, not a decision you make each time. Change the auto-join default to "Meetings I manually select," or disconnect the calendar entirely.
Do I have to delete my account to stop the bot?
No. Disconnecting your calendar under Account Settings > Integrations stops all auto-joining while keeping your account and past transcripts. Deleting is only necessary if you want to end the relationship entirely.
Does deleting my Otter account cancel my subscription?
No. Cancel the paid subscription first, then delete the account. Deleting does not stop billing on its own, and account deletion is permanent — so export any transcripts you want to keep beforehand.
Someone else's Otter is recording my meeting. How do I turn that off?
You can't change another person's settings. If you're the host, remove the Otter Notetaker from the participant list like any other attendee, and ask the organizer to disable their auto-join for that meeting.
I turned off auto-join but old transcripts are still shared. Why?
Recording settings and sharing settings are separate. Turning off auto-join only stops new recordings. Transcripts already created — and any sharing already in place — stay until you delete or unshare them.
The same question, asked other ways
- How do I get rid of Otter AI?