Meeting Transcriber

A native macOS menu bar app that automatically detects, records, transcribes, and summarizes your meetings — fully on-device, no cloud transcription.

         ┌──────────────────────┐         ┌──────────────────────┐
         │   Meeting Detected   │         │     File Import      │
         │  Teams / Zoom / Webex│         │ WAV MP3 M4A MP4 MKV  │
         └──────────┬───────────┘         └──────────┬───────────┘
                    │                                │
                    ▼                                ▼
         ┌──────────────────────┐         ┌──────────────────────┐
         │   Dual Recording     │         │   16kHz Mono Convert │
         │  App Audio + Mic     │         │  AVAudioFile/ffmpeg  │
         │  (16kHz per track)   │         │                      │
         └──────────┬───────────┘         └──────────┬───────────┘
                    │                                │
                    └────────────────┬───────────────┘
                                     ▼
                        ┌──────────────────────────┐
                        │   Transcription Engine   │
                        │ ┌──────────┬───────────┐ │
                        │ │ Whisper  │FluidAudio │ │
                        │ │   Kit    │ Parakeet  │ │
                        │ │          │ Qwen3-ASR │ │
                        │ └──────────┴───────────┘ │
                        │      CoreML / ANE        │
                        └────────────┬─────────────┘
                                     ▼
                         ┌────────────────────────┐
                         │  Speaker Diarization   │
                         │  FluidAudio CoreML/ANE │
                         │  + Speaker Recognition │
                         └───────────┬────────────┘
                                     ▼
                         ┌────────────────────────┐
                         │  Protocol Generation   │
                         │  Claude CLI / OpenAI   │
                         └───────────┬────────────┘
                                     ▼
                         ┌────────────────────────┐
                         │   Markdown Protocol    │
                         │  Summary · Decisions   │
                         │  Tasks · Transcript    │
                         └────────────────────────┘

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Features

• Automatic meeting detection — Recognizes Teams, Zoom, and Webex meetings via window title polling
• Dual audio recording — App audio (CATapDescription) + microphone simultaneously
• On-device transcription — Three engines, selectable in Settings:
  • WhisperKit — 99+ languages, ~1 GB model
  • Parakeet TDT v3 (NVIDIA) — 25 EU languages, ~50 MB model, ~10× faster
  • Qwen3-ASR (Alibaba) — 30 languages, ~1.75 GB model, macOS 15+
• On-device speaker diarization — FluidAudio via CoreML/ANE — no HuggingFace token needed
• Dual-track diarization — App and mic tracks diarized separately for clean speaker separation without echo interference
• Speaker recognition — Voice embeddings stored across meetings, matched via cosine similarity
• AI protocol generation — Structured Markdown via Claude Code CLI or OpenAI-compatible APIs (Ollama, LM Studio, etc.)
• Configurable protocol prompt — Custom prompt file support (~/Library/Application Support/MeetingTranscriber/protocol_prompt.md)
• Manual recording — Record any app via app picker, not just detected meetings
• Multi-format input — Supports WAV, MP3, M4A, MP4, and with ffmpeg also MKV, WebM, OGG
• Update checker — Notifies when a new version is available
• Background processing — PipelineQueue runs transcription and protocol generation independently from recording
• Distribution — Install via Homebrew Cask or build from source

---

Prerequisites

• macOS 14.2+ (required for CATapDescription audio capture)
• One of:
  • Claude Code CLI — installed and logged in (claude --version)
  • An OpenAI-compatible API endpoint (e.g. Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp) — configure in Settings

No HuggingFace token needed — FluidAudio and WhisperKit download their models automatically on first run.

Optional: ffmpeg for extra formats

Install ffmpeg to enable MKV, WebM, and OGG support:

brew install ffmpeg

The app detects ffmpeg automatically. Status is shown in Settings → About.

Using Ollama as provider

1. Install Ollama: brew install ollama
2. Pull a model: ollama pull llama3.1 (or any model that fits your hardware)
3. Start the server: ollama serve (runs on http://localhost:11434 by default)
4. In the app's Settings, select OpenAI-Compatible API as provider and set:
   • Endpoint: http://localhost:11434/v1/chat/completions
   • Model: llama3.1 (must match the pulled model name)

---

Installation

Via Homebrew Cask (recommended)

brew tap pasrom/meeting-transcriber
brew install --cask meeting-transcriber

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/pasrom/meeting-transcriber
cd meeting-transcriber
./scripts/run_app.sh

---

Permissions

Permission	Required for	Notes
Screen Recording	Meeting detection (window titles)	System Settings → Privacy & Security
Microphone	Mic recording	Prompted on first use
Accessibility	Mute detection, participant reading (Teams)	System Settings → Privacy & Security
App audio capture	—	No permission needed (purple dot indicator only)

---

Menu Bar Icon

The app uses an animated waveform icon in the menu bar that reflects the current pipeline stage:

           

Idle → Recording (bars bounce) → Transcribing (bars morph to text) → Diarizing (bars split into groups) → Protocol (lines appear sequentially)

---

Usage

Launch the app — it sits in your menu bar. When a supported meeting is detected, recording starts automatically. When the meeting ends, the pipeline runs in the background: transcription → diarization → protocol generation.

You can also batch-process existing audio and video files via the menu (⌘P) — supported formats: WAV, MP3, M4A, MP4 (and MKV, WebM, OGG when ffmpeg is installed).

---

Output

Files are saved to ~/Library/Application Support/MeetingTranscriber/protocols/:

File	Content
20260225_1400_meeting.txt	Raw transcript
20260225_1400_meeting.md	Structured protocol

Protocol structure: Summary, Participants, Topics Discussed, Decisions, Tasks (with responsible person, deadline, priority), Open Questions, Full Transcript.

---

Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
claude not found	Install Claude Code CLI, run claude --version — or switch to OpenAI-compatible provider in Settings
No meeting detected	Grant Screen Recording permission (System Settings → Privacy & Security)
No app audio	Requires macOS 14.2+ for CATapDescription audio capture
Empty transcription	Check that the file contains an audio track — the app converts to 16 kHz mono automatically
Models not loading	Models download on first run (WhisperKit ~1 GB, Parakeet ~50 MB, Qwen3 ~1.75 GB); check internet connectivity
OpenAI-compatible API connection failed	Verify the endpoint URL and that the local model server is running

---

License

MIT