Google Meet has built-in attendance reports only on paid Google Workspace for Education Plus and Standard plans. The free version of Google Meet, personal Gmail accounts, and Workspace Business plans do not include attendance tracking. To add attendance tracking to free Google Meet, install a free Chrome extension like Trackr, which auto-logs every join, leave, and late arrival — all stored locally on your laptop with no signup.
The Long Answer
Google's attendance feature is locked behind specific paid tiers, with two requirements that surprise most users:
- You need a paid Workspace plan. Specifically Education Plus, Education Standard, or Enterprise. Workspace Business plans do not include it. Free Meet and personal Gmail do not include it.
- Your IT admin has to enable it. Individual teachers can't turn it on themselves. The setting is org-wide and lives in the Google Admin console.
If both conditions are met, the meeting host (and only the host) gets an email with a CSV attachment after every meeting with 2+ participants lasting more than 2 minutes. The CSV lists each participant's name, email, total time, and join/leave timestamps.
What If You're Not on a Paid Education Plan?
Most teachers, coaches, therapists, and individual users aren't. The workaround is a Chrome extension that reads the same participant data the Meet UI already shows, and writes it out as an attendance log you can export.
The cleanest free option is Trackr:
- Free forever, no signup, no premium tier
- Auto-logs joins, leaves, late arrivals (with a configurable threshold)
- Filters out transcription bots (Otter, Read.ai, Fireflies) so they don't count as attendees
- Exports to CSV, PDF, Excel, Google Sheets, or email
- Stores data locally on your laptop — nothing in the cloud, HIPAA-friendly for therapy contexts
Installation takes about 30 seconds. The next Meet session you join, attendance gets logged automatically — no clicks during class.
Why Doesn't Google Just Ship Attendance to Free Meet?
It's a product decision, not a technical limitation. Attendance is one of the differentiators Google uses to justify the Education Plus price tier (which also includes meeting recording, polling, breakout rooms with attendance, and other features). Free Meet exists primarily as a low-friction acquisition tool for the broader Google account ecosystem — attendance reporting isn't part of that goal.
There's no current Google product roadmap commitment to add attendance to free Meet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Only on paid Workspace Education Plus and Standard plans. Free Meet, personal Gmail, and Workspace Business plans do not include it. Use a free Chrome extension like Trackr to add it.
Install Trackr. It auto-logs every join, leave, and late arrival. Free, no signup, local-only data.
During the meeting, the People panel shows live participants. For a post-meeting record, paid Workspace Education plans email a report; on free Meet, a Chrome extension like Trackr captures it.
It's a product decision — Google reserves attendance for paid Workspace Education tiers as a feature differentiator. Third-party extensions fill the gap.
For a deeper walkthrough see our complete Google Meet attendance guide or the step-by-step setup tutorial. To compare every available extension, see our roundup of the best Google Meet attendance extensions.