Setting up Meeting Notes & Transcripts

Activating your license

The setup window asks for your license key before anything is installed. Activating needs an internet connection; after that the app works offline.

1. Copy the key from your receipt email (or your Lemon Squeezy My Orders page).

   

2. Paste it into the box and click Activate (or press Enter).
3. A green tick shows the license type, Personal or Business, and the end of your key. Click Next.

   

If activating doesn't work

Command line: meeting-notes license activate <key> (Linux), or --license <key> on a silent install. See Command line.

Choosing how this computer handles meetings

You can change this later in the library: Settings → Server. Switching never deletes models you already have.

Personal or Business: on this computer

This is the usual setup, for a Personal license and for Business seats where each person's computer does its own work.

1. On the role page choose On this computer and click Next.

   

2. Check what setup found, then the parts it will install, and click Install. Step-by-step pictures are in the Install guide.
3. When it says All set, you're ready: join a meeting and it records by itself.

Business seats: your company's key can be activated on 2 computers per seat (a 5-seat key on up to 10). Everyone uses the same key; the License card in Settings shows how many computers are using it.

Business: use the office server

Each computer still records the meeting itself; only the meeting's sound goes to the server, which sends back the transcript, speakers and summary. Recordings, names and the library stay on the computer.

1. Get the server URL from whoever runs the server. It looks like https://192.168.1.20:8791/#key=…&fp=…. Copy the whole URL, including the part after #.
2. On the role page choose Use a Meeting Notes & Transcripts server, paste the URL and click Test.
3. When it says Connected to your server (and what it runs), click Next and install. There are no large downloads.

   

Away from the office? If the server can't be reached, the computer does the work itself when it has the models, otherwise meetings wait and are sent when the server is back.

Already installed? Open the library, Settings → Server, paste the URL, click Test, then turn on Use a server.

Silent install for IT: --server-url "<URL>". See silent install.

Business: set up the office server (Linux)

One Linux computer with a good graphics card does the transcripts and summaries for everyone. It needs a Business license activated on it, and it should stay on.

What you need

• A 64-bit Linux computer, ideally with an NVIDIA graphics card; it can be headless (no screen).
• A Business license key.
• Port 8791 reachable from the other computers on your network (allow it in the server's firewall if one is on).

With the setup window

1. Install the package (see Install on Linux) and open Meeting Notes & Transcripts.
2. Activate the Business key on the License page. With a Personal key the server option stays greyed out.
3. Choose Make this computer the server. Leave Install new versions automatically when the server is idle ticked (recommended; see below), then install. With it ticked, setup asks for your password once, to allow updates with nobody signed in.

   

4. The last page shows the URL to give to the other computers, with a Copy button.

Without a screen (over SSH)

1. Install the package, then run (one line):

   meeting-notes setup --server --license <your-business-key>

   It first asks whether the server should install new versions by itself (press Enter for yes; see Keeping the server up to date). Then it activates the key, installs the speech engine, starts the server as a user service that keeps running after you log out, and prints the URL:

   Install new versions automatically, when the server is idle? [Y/n]
   …
   Updates: Automatic updates are on: new versions install by themselves when the server is idle.
   
   Give the apps this URL (setup, or Settings → Server → Use a server):
     https://192.168.1.20:8791/#key=<sign-up key>&fp=<certificate fingerprint>
   Check on it any time with:  meeting-notes server status

2. Check that it's working:

   meeting-notes server status
   
   Meeting Notes & Transcripts server on office-server  (encrypted)
     Transcripts : nemo-cuda on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
     Summaries   : gpt-oss:20b
     Search      : nomic-embed-text
     Queue       : 0 running, 0 waiting
     Devices     : 0
     Updates: installed by themselves when the server is idle (checked hourly)

3. Give the URL to the other computers (setup's Use a Meeting Notes & Transcripts server, or Settings → Server). Get it again any time with meeting-notes server url.

Keeping the server up to date

Nobody opens the library on a server, so the server updates itself: once an hour it looks for a new version, and installs it only when it is idle (no meeting being transcribed or waiting, and no app has asked it anything for 10 minutes). It restarts by itself on the new version within seconds; the other computers keep their setup and simply carry on.

• Choosing it: setup asks (the checkbox in the setup window, the question on the command line). For scripted installs add --auto-update yes or --auto-update no.
• The one-time permission: installing a package needs an administrator, and on a server nobody is signed in to type a password. Saying yes adds the server's user to the meeting-notes-update group, which may install only newer versions signed by Studer Works, without a password. Setup asks for your password once to do this. If it couldn't (for example a scripted install without sudo), it prints the command to run once:

  sudo usermod -aG meeting-notes-update <user>

• Change it later:

  meeting-notes server auto-update       # is it on, and allowed?
  meeting-notes server auto-update on    # on (asks for the password once if the permission is missing)
  meeting-notes server auto-update off   # off: install new versions by hand

• By hand: download the package from studerworks.com/download with your key and install it (for example sudo apt install ./meeting-notes_*.deb); then systemctl --user restart meeting-notes-server.

Servers on versions before November 2026 can't update themselves yet: install the current version by hand once, then run meeting-notes server auto-update on.

Security and privacy

• Traffic is encrypted. The server makes its own certificate, and the URL carries its fingerprint, so computers only talk to your server.
• The key in the URL is only for signing up. Each computer then gets its own key, so one can be removed without changing everyone's setup.
• The server keeps no transcripts, and meeting audio is deleted once the computer has picked up the results.
• If the server already runs an AI model server, Meeting Notes & Transcripts uses the models already loaded there and never changes them.

Managing computers

meeting-notes server devices            # computers using the server, last seen, meetings, GPU time
meeting-notes server approval on        # new computers wait until you approve them
meeting-notes server approve <name|id>  # let a waiting computer in
meeting-notes server remove <name|id>   # this computer can't use the server any more
meeting-notes server new-url            # new sign-up URL; computers already connected keep working

After remove, run new-url too if that computer still has the old URL, so it can't sign up again.

After setup: first steps

1. Open the library: click the tray icon (or Start menu → Meeting Notes & Transcripts).
2. In Settings → Personal → You are, pick your name once you've named yourself in a meeting: your action items then show on Home.
3. Optional: create tags for your clients or projects, and give a tag a knowledge folder for Live assist.
4. Join a meeting. See Using the app.