Using Meeting Notes & Transcripts

The tray icon

Meeting Notes & Transcripts lives in the system tray: a grey dot when idle, red while recording. Click it to open the Meeting Library; right-click for the menu.

Quit Meeting Notes & Transcripts stops watching for meetings and closes the library windows; if a meeting is being recorded it asks first. It starts again at your next sign-in (or from the Start menu / app menu).

Recording a meeting

Automatically

1. Join your call in Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Slack or a browser.
2. When the call app starts using the microphone, a notification says Meeting detected and recording starts in 10 seconds. In that time you can choose Skip (don't record this meeting), Pick screen or window… or Audio only.
3. Recording starts: it records the meeting's window (following it if it moves to another screen) plus the meeting audio and your microphone, and the meeting window opens.
4. When the call app lets go of the microphone, recording stops about 3 seconds later, so you can go straight into your next call. A notification says Meeting saved, with buttons to open it in the library or open its folder.

By hand

• Start: tray menu → Start recording, or Record now at the top of the library.
• Stop: tray menu → Stop recording, or Stop recording in the meeting window (click twice, so it isn't stopped by accident).

Recordings shorter than one minute (for example a microphone test) are not kept. Each meeting is saved as its own folder in your recordings folder.

It is your responsibility to tell everyone in a meeting that it is being recorded and to get their consent where the law requires it. The meeting window shows a reminder while you record.

The meeting window

The meeting window opens when a recording starts and closes when it ends (you can switch that off in Settings → Personal → Meeting window).

• Top: the recording time and number of notes, Open library and Stop recording.
• Tags: pick the meeting's client or project at the start. The app may suggest a tag from the meeting's title; tags also tell Live assist which documents to use.
• Preview: what's being recorded. Change screen picks another screen or window; Audio only stops recording the screen (the sound continues).
• Earlier and open action items: similar earlier meetings and the action items still open from them, so you start the call prepared.
• Notes: type a note and press Enter; it's saved with the time. ★ Mark moment marks the current time to find it again later.
• Keep on top keeps the window above your call.

Presenting? If you share a different screen than the one being recorded, the app asks you to check the preview, so the recording shows what you're presenting.

Live assist

Live assist listens during the call and answers questions from your own documents and earlier meetings, as they're asked. It runs on your computer and needs an NVIDIA graphics card.

1. Turn it on: library → Settings → Live assist. Also turn on Save Q&A to keep the questions and answers with the meeting.

   

2. Give a tag a knowledge folder: library → Tags → pick the tag → Knowledge folder → Choose…. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, Markdown and text files are read ahead of time (sub-folders too); the index is kept in a hidden folder inside it.
3. Tag the meeting in the meeting window at the start of the call. The Q&A tab then shows answers as questions are asked:

   

• Ask a question…: type your own question and press Enter.
• Look this up (Ctrl+L): looks up what was just said.
• Sources (n) ▸: the documents and meetings the answer came from; click one to open it.
• × removes an answer (it isn't saved with the meeting).

After the meeting

The transcript, speakers and summary are made automatically, newest meetings first. Work waits while another meeting is being recorded (and, if you choose, while on battery: Settings → Power), so your calls are never slowed down.

The Meeting Library

Click the tray icon to open the library in its own window (not a web browser; links to the website or email open in your usual browser and mail app). Home shows your counts, a meeting calendar, charts, tags and your open action items; meetings are listed on the left by day.

• Search (top left) searches every transcript and note.
• Filter / Sort narrow the list by tag, date, app, people, length, meeting type and more.

A meeting

• Timeline: who spoke when; click to jump.
• Speakers: type a name once; that voice is recognized in later meetings.
• Ask about this meeting: a question answered from this meeting only.
• Split here / Merge with… / Clip…: split a recording that holds two meetings, join a meeting cut in two, or save a part as a clip. Originals are kept.
• Export…: save a copy in your Downloads folder as MP4 video, or MP3, FLAC or WAV audio.
• Icons next to transcript times show a marked moment ★, a note 📝 or a Live assist question 💬.

Summary, Notes, Action items and Q&A

Summary type: pick another type on the Summary tab (Brief, Detailed, Status update and more) and the summary is written again. Edit the types and their instructions in Settings.

Speakers

Name a speaker once and the voice is recognized in every other meeting. The Speakers tab lists everyone, with suggestions to review.

Per person you can turn on Auto-match (with a minimum match %) so their voice is named without review.

Action items

Home shows your open items once you've set Settings → Personal → You are.

Tags and folders

• Part of: nest tags like folders (for example a project under a client).
• Folder: recordings with this tag are copied there once transcribed, for example a synced folder per client.
• Knowledge folder: documents for Live assist.
• Keep video: drop the video after a number of days and keep the audio, transcript and summary.

Ask your meetings

Click Ask, type a question and press Ask. The answer comes from your transcripts and summaries, with numbered sources that jump to the moment it was said. Narrow it to a tag or dates if you like.

Settings

Password and encryption

In Settings → Privacy you can give the app a password. Every recording is then stored encrypted with it: video and sound, transcripts, summaries, notes, action items, clips, voice samples, the search index and backups. Someone who opens the recordings folder, copies a file or takes the disk out can't play or read anything, and the folder and file names no longer show the meeting's title (only its date, time and an id).

• Recording never asks for the password. Meetings are recorded and encrypted while the app is locked.
• Opening the library does. It locks itself after the minutes you choose without use (15 by default), when your screen locks, and with Lock now.
• Background work goes on. After you unlock once, transcripts and summaries keep being made until you sign out, restart or the computer sleeps, even while the library window is locked. When the computer sleeps the key leaves memory (a hibernation file can't hold it); after waking, the library asks for the password again and background work carries on once you type it.
• Recovery key. When you turn encryption on, the app shows a recovery key once. Keep it somewhere safe that isn't this computer: with it you can set a new password. If both the password and the recovery key are lost, nobody can open the recordings, including us.
• Turning it off asks for the password once more, then decrypts everything in the background and gives recordings their titles back as names.

Good to know: while a meeting is being recorded its pieces are kept unencrypted in the recording's hidden .segments folder and encrypted when it is saved (deleted files can't be guaranteed to be gone from an SSD). Settings, tags and the app's logs aren't encrypted. Export as… and shared clips make readable copies, because you asked for them. Copies made before you turned encryption on can survive in file-system snapshots, File History or shadow copies, a sync tool's version history and your computer's Trash; delete those yourself if they matter. Encryption protects against other people and other accounts, not against a program running as you on an unlocked computer. Turning encryption off waits while a folder it uses (a network drive, the backup folder) can't be reached, so nothing is left encrypted.

Recording formats

Meetings are saved as ordinary files you can open with any player: .mp4 for video (AV1) and .m4a for sound (MP3), one folder per meeting. Both formats are free to use: AV1 is royalty-free and MP3's patents have expired, so nothing in the app needs a codec licence.

Recordings from earlier versions (H.264 video, AAC or Opus sound) don't play in the library until they're converted. Open one and click Convert it now, or convert them all in the background in Settings → Older recordings. Transcripts, notes and speaker names stay; the old file goes to the Trash. Converting reads the old file with a decoder your computer already has: Windows' own (Windows N editions need the Media Feature Pack: Settings → Apps → Optional features), or on Linux the FFmpeg from your distribution (for example sudo apt install ffmpeg, on Fedora sudo dnf install --allowerasing ffmpeg-free openh264, which reads H.264 through Cisco's OpenH264, or sudo pacman -S ffmpeg).

Backup and moving to a new computer

1. On the old computer: Settings → Backup, choose a backup folder (for example a synced or network folder). Automatic backup keeps it up to date.
2. On the old computer: Settings → License → Deactivate this computer to free its slot.
3. Copy your recordings folder to the new computer (or let your sync tool do it).
4. Install Meeting Notes & Transcripts on the new computer and activate your key.
5. In the library: Settings → Backup, choose the same folder and restore the newest backup. Recordings are found wherever they are, with their tags and speaker names.

If your library is encrypted, turn encryption on in the new computer first, with your recovery key: Settings → Privacy → A new computer? Use the recovery key you already have. Then restore the backup (backups are encrypted too).