---
title: "Closing a meeting"
description: "Any participant can close a meeting in Talkspirit. Closing creates the meeting report, records where each agenda item ended up, and can be undone for two hours"
category: structure-governance
section: meetings
type: Tutorial
lastUpdated: 2026-08-05
locale: en
canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/how-to-close-a-meeting
---

# Closing a meeting


## Closing a meeting
Click **Close meeting** in the meeting header to close a meeting that is in progress. Closing ends the live session, creates the meeting report, and records where each agenda item ended up. Nothing is deleted, and you can reopen the meeting for two hours if you closed it by mistake.

Any participant can close a meeting: the organiser, anyone invited directly, and anyone taking part through a circle or a role. The note taker holds no special privilege here. Members who are not participants see the button greyed out, with the tooltip *Only meeting participants can use this action*.

## Close the meeting

1. Open the meeting while its status is **In progress**.
2. Click **Close meeting** in the meeting header.

There is no confirmation step. The meeting closes on that single click, and a *The meeting is now closed* message appears with a **View report** shortcut.

![Header of a meeting in progress: the Close meeting button is highlighted, beside the Presenting badge and the remaining-time counter](/images/structure-governance/how-to-close-a-meeting/01-close-meeting-button.png)

## What happens when a meeting closes

- **The report is created.** Your organisation decides whether it is published straight away or kept as a draft, under **Meeting settings** > **Defaults** > **Reports on meeting end**. Reports are listed under **Meetings** > **Reports**.
- **Participants are notified when the report is published.** The notification goes to the meeting's participants, not to every member of the circle. Each person can switch it off in their own notification settings, under **Meeting report published**.
- **Agenda items keep their outcome.** The report groups them as **Processed**, **Discussed**, **Not discussed** and **Skipped**.
- **Undecided governance proposals stay where they are.** In a governance meeting, closing does not decide anything: a proposal raised live but not adopted or rejected in the room simply stays at the step it reached, and someone has to pick it up again. Organisations that have switched on delayed validation are the exception, and there the proposal moves into an asynchronous consent round instead.

Anyone who can open a report can also export it as a PDF or copy its URL, from the ⋮ menu on the row in **Meetings** > **Reports**. Reports survive the deletion of their circle: past meetings are kept as history.

## Find the agenda items you did not get to

Items you did not process stay attached to the closed meeting. Nothing is transferred, deleted, or sent back anywhere automatically.

1. Open **Meetings** > **Agenda items**.
2. Expand the **Needs rescheduling** group at the bottom of the list. It is collapsed by default and holds the items of every closed or cancelled meeting.
3. Click **Reschedule** on the item's row and pick a meeting that is still open. The same dialog sits behind **Bring to a meeting** in the row's ⋮ menu.

> **Note:** The group is built from the meeting's status, not the item's, so items you did process in the closed meeting sit there too. Add a **Status** filter set to **Pending** to narrow it to the ones still waiting.

![Agenda items page with the Needs rescheduling group expanded at the bottom of the list; each row shows its closed meeting, an Ended badge and a Reschedule button](/images/structure-governance/how-to-close-a-meeting/02-needs-rescheduling-group.png)

## Reopen a meeting closed by mistake

You have two hours from the moment the meeting closed.

1. Open the closed meeting.
2. Click the ⋮ menu in the meeting header.
3. Click **Reopen meeting**.

Past two hours the action fails with *The reopen window has expired*. Reopening never overwrites the report: if someone edited it while the meeting was closed, Talkspirit tells you so and keeps their edits.

## If a meeting is left open

A meeting that was started and never closed closes on its own. An administrator sets the delay under **Meeting settings** > **Defaults** > **Automatic Closing**. It counts hours from the meeting's scheduled end time, is 10 hours by default, and switches off entirely when set to 0.

An automatic close does exactly what your click does, report included. Separately, the note taker receives one **Meeting overdue** notification once the scheduled end time has passed with the meeting still open.

## What's Next?

- [Transferring unprocessed agenda items to another meeting](/structure-governance/how-to-transfer-unprocessed-agenda-items-to-another-meeting)
- [Using Bring to meeting](/structure-governance/how-to-use-bring-to-meeting)
- [Opening, scheduling, editing, or deleting a meeting](/structure-governance/how-to-open-schedule-edit-or-delete-a-meeting)