Recording meetings

Start a recording

The first recording asks for access to your microphone.

The menu bar’s Voice button also records, but it keeps the audio as a file in Sources and makes no note. See The menu bar.

If MindLake can read your calendar and a meeting is under way when you start recording by hand, it asks “Is this your meeting?” Linking it adds the meeting’s attendees to the note and uses them to tell the speakers apart. You can also link one later from the note’s ⋯ menu ▸ Link Calendar Meeting….

Upcoming meetings

Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Show upcoming meetings is off until you turn it on. Turning it on asks for calendar access. It reads every calendar your Mac’s Calendar app knows, and nothing leaves your Mac.

• When it shows. From 15 minutes before a meeting until it ends, in the bottom-right corner of the library window, with the meeting’s title and start time (or “now”). All-day events are left out.
• Click it to start recording into a note named after the meeting, with its attendees filled in and the number of speakers taken from them.
• Not this one? Hover over the pill and click its cross to hide it.
• At the notch too. While the pill is offering a meeting, the notch widens either side of the camera with a countdown, Join (when the meeting has a call link) and Record. Open the notch and its meeting card shows the meeting under way, or else the next one in the coming 12 hours, with Record and Join. With Show upcoming meetings off, the card reads “No more meetings” with a Turn on button, which switches it on and asks for calendar access. See The notch.
• Bookings are left out. An entry a service put in your calendar isn’t offered for recording, or suggested by “Is this your meeting?”. MindLake treats an entry as one when its organiser is an automated address (no-reply, notifications and the like), or its title starts like a journey or an errand, such as “Train to …”, “Flight from …”, “Check-in” or “Delivery”.

Microphone and call audio

MindLake records from Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Input device. System Default follows your macOS Sound settings, and the Input level meter shows whether the microphone can hear you. Refresh devices picks up one you have just plugged in.

With Capture system audio on, as it is by default, MindLake also records whatever your Mac is playing, such as the other side of a Zoom or Teams call. Your microphone and the call go on separate channels, which is how the transcript tells you apart from everyone else. macOS asks for System Audio Recording permission the first time; if you decline, or the capture can’t start, MindLake records your microphone alone.

A call recorded this way is transcribed from each side’s own audio, so more of the other people’s words are caught, and the people on the far side are told apart by MindLake’s newer speaker engine. This happens on its own; there is no setting for it.

The recording panel

While you record, a panel sits in the bottom-right corner of the library window. From left to right:

The menu bar icon turns into a waveform while a recording runs, and the notch widens either side of the camera with the recording’s clock and a Stop button. You can also stop from the menu bar panel, where Voice becomes Stop, from the notch’s meeting card, or from the note’s ⋯ menu ▸ Stop Recording.

When you stop

1. The audio is saved into your vault beside its note, under the same name.
2. If you recorded into a note, the audio joins that note. A recording it already had is not overwritten: the earlier take and its transcript are kept among the note’s sources.
3. Otherwise a new note opens, named after the calendar meeting, or “Recording ·” with the date and time.
4. Transcription starts on your Mac and shows its progress as Transcribing, Identifying speakers, then Finishing up. See Transcripts and speakers.

If the speech model isn’t on your Mac yet, MindLake asks to download it first: on most Macs that is Parakeet TDT v3, about 600 MB. Anything recorded before the download finishes is transcribed once it has.

Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Keep audio decides what happens to the audio of new recordings: Keep audio (the default), Wipe after transcription, Wipe after 7 days or Wipe after 30 days. The transcript stays either way.

Recordings left running

• Quiet alert. Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Tell me when a recording goes quiet is on by default. After 10 minutes without sound (choose 5, 10, 15 or 30 under After), a Still recording notification offers Stop and Save or Keep Recording, whatever app you are in. If the recording came from a calendar meeting that has already ended, it waits half as long. The first time, macOS asks to allow notifications.
• Automatic stop. After an hour with nothing heard, the recording stops itself, saves what it caught and tells you so. A single recording also stops at about 18 hours, the most one file can hold.
• Nothing being saved. If a recording runs but no audio reaches the file, MindLake tells you within about 20 seconds, so you can start again.
• Recovery. If MindLake quits mid-recording, the next launch repairs the file, puts it in its note and transcribes it.

Notifications

MindLake tells you about calls and recordings with Mac notifications, whatever app you are in. Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Notifications has a switch for each kind, all on by default:

To notice a call, MindLake only looks at which apps are using the microphone, never at what they hear or show, and nothing leaves your Mac. Turning off A call starts also stops it looking.

Turning a switch on asks for permission to send notifications, the first time. If notifications are off for MindLake, the section says so, and Open System Settings goes straight to MindLake’s own page in System Settings ▸ Notifications, where you also choose how they look.

Transcribe a recording you already have

Audio made somewhere else, such as a voice memo or a call another app recorded, is transcribed on your Mac the same way. Any audio file macOS recognises works, such as M4A, MP3, WAV, AIFF or FLAC. Your file is copied, never moved.

Dropping, opening or sharing the same file again opens the note it made the first time.