meeting-noter 0.3.0

Offline meeting transcription for macOS with automatic meeting detection

Meeting Noter

Offline meeting transcription tool for macOS. Captures both your voice and meeting participants' audio, saves to MP3, and transcribes locally using Whisper.

Features

• No virtual audio devices needed - Uses ScreenCaptureKit (like Notion, Discord)
• Captures both sides - Your mic + system audio (meeting participants)
• Offline transcription - Uses Whisper locally, no API calls
• Auto-detection - Detects active meetings (Zoom, Teams, Meet, Slack)
• Multiple interfaces - Menu bar app, desktop GUI, or CLI
• Auto-segmentation - One file per meeting (detects silence)

Installation

Option 1: Using pipx (Recommended)

# Install pipx if you don't have it
brew install pipx
pipx ensurepath

# Install meeting-noter
cd /path/to/meeting-noter
pipx install -e .

Option 2: Using a virtual environment

cd /path/to/meeting-noter
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install --upgrade pip
.venv/bin/pip install -e .

Then add an alias in your ~/.zshrc:

echo 'alias meeting-noter="/path/to/meeting-noter/.venv/bin/meeting-noter"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Quick Start

1. One-time Setup

meeting-noter setup

This will request Screen Recording permission, which is needed to capture meeting participants' audio.

2. Launch the App

Menu Bar App (recommended):

meeting-noter menubar

Desktop GUI:

meeting-noter gui

CLI Recording:

meeting-noter start "Weekly Standup"

3. Record a Meeting

• The menu bar app auto-detects meetings and prompts to record
• Or manually start recording via the GUI/CLI
• Press Ctrl+C (CLI) or click Stop to end recording

4. Transcribe

Recordings are auto-transcribed by default. Or manually:

# Transcribe the most recent recording
meeting-noter transcribe

# Transcribe a specific file
meeting-noter transcribe recording.mp3

# List all recordings
meeting-noter list

Commands

Command	Description
meeting-noter setup	One-time setup (Screen Recording permission)
meeting-noter menubar	Launch menu bar app
meeting-noter gui	Launch desktop GUI
meeting-noter start [name]	Interactive CLI recording
meeting-noter daemon	Start background audio capture
meeting-noter status	Check daemon status
meeting-noter stop	Stop the daemon
meeting-noter list	List recent recordings
meeting-noter transcribe	Transcribe a recording
meeting-noter devices	List audio devices

Options

start

• First argument: Meeting name (optional, auto-generates timestamp if omitted)

daemon

• -o, --output-dir: Where to save recordings (default: ~/meetings)
• -f, --foreground: Run in foreground instead of background
• -n, --name: Meeting name for the recording

transcribe

• -m, --model: Whisper model size (tiny.en, base.en, small.en, medium.en, large-v3)
• -l, --live: Real-time transcription (experimental)
• -o, --output-dir: Directory with recordings

list

• -n, --limit: Number of recordings to show
• -o, --output-dir: Directory with recordings

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│         Your Meeting App            │
│      (Zoom/Teams/Meet/Slack)        │
└──────────────────┬──────────────────┘
                   │
     ┌─────────────┴─────────────┐
     ▼                           ▼
┌─────────┐               ┌─────────────┐
│   Mic   │               │ System Audio│
│(default)│               │(ScreenCaptureKit)
└────┬────┘               └──────┬──────┘
     │                           │
     └───────────┬───────────────┘
                 ▼
         ┌─────────────┐
         │Meeting Noter│
         │  (capture)  │
         └──────┬──────┘
                │
                ▼
    ~/meetings/2024-01-15_Weekly_Standup.mp3
                │
                ▼ (auto or on-demand)
         ┌─────────────┐
         │   Whisper   │ (local)
         └──────┬──────┘
                │
                ▼
    ~/meetings/2024-01-15_Weekly_Standup.txt

Permissions Required

1. Microphone - For capturing your voice
2. Screen Recording - For capturing system audio (meeting participants)
   • Grant in: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording
   • This uses ScreenCaptureKit, the same API used by Notion, Discord, etc.

Troubleshooting

No system audio captured (only my voice)

Screen Recording permission not granted. Go to: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording

Enable the toggle for Terminal (or your IDE/app).

Meeting not auto-detected

Meeting detection works for: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack. The meeting window must be open (not minimized).

Transcription is slow

Use a smaller model:

meeting-noter transcribe --model tiny.en

Model sizes:

• tiny.en (~75MB) - Fastest, good for most cases
• base.en (~150MB) - Better accuracy
• small.en (~500MB) - High accuracy
• medium.en (~1.5GB) - Very high accuracy
• large-v3 (~3GB) - Best accuracy

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/meeting-noter/config.json

{
    "recordings_dir": "~/meetings",
    "transcripts_dir": "~/meetings",
    "whisper_model": "tiny.en",
    "auto_transcribe": true,
    "silence_timeout": 5,
    "capture_system_audio": true
}

Requirements

• macOS 12.3+ (for ScreenCaptureKit)
• Python 3.9+

License

MIT