Transcripts & AI notes
Transcripts, made on your Mac
After every meeting, recd writes a transcript with Apple's on-device speech engine. The audio never leaves your Mac for it.
When a meeting recording is saved, recd transcribes it on your Mac and saves <meeting> - Transcript.txt in the meeting's folder. It's free, it works offline, and the audio isn't sent anywhere to do it.
Who said what
recd records a meeting on two tracks: your microphone and the computer's sound. Each is transcribed separately and merged by time:
- Me is your microphone.
- Them is everyone else on the call.
People inside Them aren't told apart yet: three colleagues on a call are all Them. Settings shows this as Label speakers, always on.
On laptop speakers your mic also hears the other side. recd drops Me lines that repeat what Them said a moment earlier, so the transcript doesn't say everything twice. Headphones still give the cleanest result.
Read it in recd
The transcript runs down the right of the full window, with a time on each line.
- Click a line to play the meeting from there.
- Follow playback (the target button) keeps the line being played in view.
- Search the transcript (the magnifying glass) shows only the lines with your words.
To find a meeting by something that was said, use the sidebar's search instead: it looks inside every transcript. See Find a recording.
How long it takes
Usually seconds: a short meeting can be done before the upload finishes. While it works, the column says Writing the transcript on this Mac….
The very first time, macOS downloads its speech model, a few hundred MB, once. Settings › Transcription & AI notes › Speech model shows whether it's installed or Downloads with the first meeting.
Language
recd transcribes in your Mac's language when Apple's speech engine supports it, and in English (US) otherwise.
Make it again
If a transcript is missing, right-click the meeting in the sidebar and choose Make Transcript. This needs the meeting's separate tracks, which stay on the Mac that recorded it, in ~/Movies/recd/Meeting tracks. On another Mac you'll see This meeting's separate tracks aren't on this Mac.
Screen recordings
Screen recordings don't get a transcript. The column says so. Record a Meeting when you want words.
Something here not match what you see? Tell Nick and it gets fixed.