Your first meeting

This page takes you from opening Samurai Scribe for the first time to a meeting with a transcript, named speakers and a summary. It works the same on a Mac and on Windows; where the two differ, it says so. Allow time for the downloads: the app runs its models on your computer, so it fetches them once.

Setup, on first launch

Setup opens by itself the first time. It has five steps, and you can leave it at any point with Finish later. Until everything is done, an amber Finish setup chip at the foot of the sidebar shows what’s left and opens setup at the first step that still needs something. You can also run it again from Settings → Help & Setup → Open Setup.

1. Welcome. Pick what you want the app for: Meeting Notetaker, Dictation, or both.
   • The page also shows where your meetings will be saved. The app makes a folder for you, called a vault: Samurai Scribe in your Documents folder.
   • Change… opens your list of vaults, where you can create one or open a folder you already have.
2. Audio. Let the app hear your meetings.
   • On a Mac, press Enable microphone and Enable system audio, and allow each when macOS asks. System audio is the other side of a call. macOS files it under Screen Recording, though no video is captured. On macOS 14.4 and later, macOS may ask once more the first time the app records your computer’s sound.
   • On Windows, there is nothing to allow for system audio. Press Check microphone.
   • Once the microphone is allowed, a check starts by itself: say something and watch the bar move.
3. About you. Type your name under Your name and press Save, so transcripts spell it your way. If you picked Meeting Notetaker, Teach it your voice asks you to read three sentences aloud: press Start reading, read them, then Done. From then on the app can name you in your first meeting. This step is optional; the Speakers page asks once more if you skip it.
4. Downloads. The models the app runs. See the next section: this step matters.
5. Ready. A summary of what’s set up, and Take the tour: a short walkthrough of the window, then of the assistant, and of Dictation if you picked it.

Download the models before your first run

The app runs its models on your computer, so it downloads each one once. Two download by themselves on first launch:

• Transcription. The model is picked from your computer’s language: Parakeet v2 for English, Parakeet v3 for the other European languages Parakeet knows, and Whisper Small for any other language. Parakeet is about 0.67 GB, Whisper Small about 0.47 GB. All three are free. Other… beside it on the Downloads step picks another; Transcription explains the models, where they run, and how to compare them.
• The speaker voice model, which tells voices apart and recognises the people you’ve named. It’s small, and it comes with the app’s other small core models.

One you start yourself:

• Summaries, the built-in AI model, about 3 GB. Press Download beside it on the Downloads step. The assistant uses the same model. Already use Ollama, or a hosted model? You can pick that in Settings → AI Models instead.

The Downloads step also offers two optional extras. Find your names and terms in the sound checks the recording itself when a word looks like a name or term you use, so it comes out spelled your way. Read images in your notes lets the summary read the images you add to a meeting’s notes.

Downloads carry on in the background while you use the app. Their progress shows on the Downloads step and in Settings → AI Models.

Live transcription writes the transcript while you record. It’s on to begin with: Mode reads As you speak in Settings → AI Models → Transcription. It needs one more model, the captions model, of about 0.7 GB, listed on the Downloads step as Live · … (draft): it shows what is being said as people speak. Each finished turn is then written by your transcription model, the same one a Run uses, so the live transcript is the meeting’s transcript. Until the captions model is downloaded, a recording is transcribed when you press Run. Transcribe when I finish instead on the Downloads step turns live transcription off; When you finish, in the same setting, does the same later.

Record a meeting

The app opens on an empty meeting. To start one later, choose New Meeting, the first row in the sidebar. Then use the card at the bottom of the window, “Drop audio here, or record it”:

• Mic and System decide what is recorded. Both are on to begin with, so the app records your voice and the other side of the call.
• Press the round Start Recording button. Press it again (Stop Recording) when the meeting ends.

Other ways to start:

• Quick Record. Hover New Meeting in the sidebar and click the record icon beside it. Its shortcut, Record New Meeting in Settings → Hotkeys (Option+Shift+R on a Mac, Alt+Shift+R on Windows), works only while Dictation is on.
• From your calendar. With a calendar connected, a reminder appears as a meeting starts; press Record.
• When a call starts. On Windows, and on macOS 14 and later, the app notices a call app using the microphone and asks “Record it with Samurai Scribe?”; press Record.
• A recording you already have. Drop the file onto the card instead of recording.

Recordings started from your calendar or a call stop by themselves.

Run it

A recording you start yourself waits for you. To process it, press Run: the round button with an upward arrow at the right end of the bar under the card. Its tooltip reads “Process the audio with the selected settings”.

• The Transcript tab opens and the bar fills as the run goes. You can keep using the app meanwhile.
• If the meeting was transcribed as you spoke, the run keeps that transcript and its speakers and writes the summary. The Transcribe stage on the bar then reads Done. Click it before Run to transcribe the meeting again from its audio, telling its speakers apart again.
• Recordings started from a calendar meeting run by themselves. To have every recording run when it stops, set Settings → Mic & Audio → Process automatically when a recording stops to All recordings.
• Without Pro, one meeting runs at a time.

How Samurai Scribe works explains what a run does, and what running a meeting again replaces.

Read the results

Results arrive as tabs on the meeting: Transcript, and one tab per document, normally Summary. A Notes tab appears when you write notes of your own. Speaking-time charts are in the Transcript tab too: switch its view, in the toolbar at its top, from Segments to Analytics.

The meeting is also a folder of ordinary files. To see it, click ⋯ in the meeting’s title bar (its tooltip reads “Meeting actions”) and choose Reveal in Finder (Reveal in Explorer on Windows). The same menu opens from the meeting’s row in the sidebar.

While you record

With live transcription on, the Transcript tab fills in as people speak. Finished lines appear as rows, and what is still being said shows below them until it’s done. A long turn is split into sentences. A line can be edited once its words are final, a few seconds after the speaker stops.

Fix the transcript

Click into a line to change its words. Edits save as you make them: there is nothing to save or discard. To take one back, use the undo and redo arrows in the transcript’s toolbar, or press Cmd+Z and Cmd+Shift+Z on a Mac, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y on Windows. Undo also takes back a change to the speakers, such as a rename or a merge.

The toolbar’s ⋮ menu has more:

• Polish transcript… and Translate transcript… ask the assistant, which proposes the new text for you to review.
• Restore as transcribed… puts back the transcript as the app first wrote it.
• Re-transcribe…, for a meeting transcribed as you spoke, makes the transcript again from the audio.

Name the speakers

Beside the transcript, the Speakers card lists everyone who spoke, under placeholder names:

• in a recording, Mic Speaker for your side and Sys Speaker, Sys Speaker 2 and so on for the call, under two headings: Your microphone and The call;
• in an imported file, Speaker, Speaker 2 and so on.

The app names a speaker by itself only when they clearly sound like someone the meeting expects: you, someone on its calendar invite, or someone you added. Anyone else you’ve named before is only suggested.

To name them:

• On a speaker’s card, click Who is this? and pick a name: people on the meeting’s invite come first, then people the app knows. Or type a name and press Enter (or choose New person: …). The name replaces the placeholder throughout the transcript.
• Some cards ask instead. Is this you? has Yes, it’s me. “Sounds like …” suggests a person you’ve named before, and “Probably …” the only person on the invite not yet heard: Yes accepts, Someone else picks another.
• The card’s ⋯ menu has Rename…, Merge into (for two speakers who are the same person), Change colour… and Clear name. You can also drag one card onto another to merge them.
• Invited, under the cards, lists the people on the meeting’s invite and whether they were heard. Drag someone not heard onto a card, or click them and pick the speaker. Dropping them on a card that already has a name gives that person the invite’s email address; if the app knows that address as someone else, it asks first whether the two are the same person.
• Find names…, in the transcript’s ⋮ menu while someone is unnamed, asks the assistant to suggest names from what was said. Each suggestion waits on its card, “Assistant thinks: …”, for Yes or No.
• Clicking the speaker’s name on one line of the transcript changes that line. Choose a person and the other lines in the meeting that still have a placeholder name and clearly sound like them take that name too.
• Add someone, under the cards, adds a person the card doesn’t list: someone you know, someone on the meeting’s invite, or a new name. It names no lines by itself: it puts them on the list you choose from when you name a speaker, and the next Run can recognise them if the app knows their voice.

Once you confirm a name, the app keeps a voice print and recognises that person in later meetings. It also makes them a note in your vault’s People/ folder. It keeps up to three clips of each person’s voice, each from a meeting where you confirmed them, so a headset voice and a room voice can both be known. On the Speakers page in the sidebar, a person’s Voice learned from lists the clips: play one, or remove one the app learned wrongly.

Show, hide and play the speakers

• Speakers are shown on the transcript’s lines. The switch at the top of the Speakers card hides them, and folds the card, for the meeting you’re looking at. The default for every meeting is Settings → Meetings → Speaker names in the transcript: Always show speakers to begin with, or Auto (hide if one unnamed speaker), or Always hide speakers.
• Collapse speakers (») folds the card into a narrow strip of each speaker’s mark; click a mark to open the card at that speaker. A dot on the strip means someone is still unnamed. In a narrow window the card folds into the strip by itself.
• Play all their lines, in a card’s ⋯ menu, plays only that speaker’s lines, one after another. The playbar then reads “Only …”; Play everyone goes back to the whole meeting. The play button on a card plays a few seconds of that speaker.

Lock a track to its people

A recording keeps your microphone and the call as separate tracks; an imported file is one. When you know who was on a track, Lock gives every line on it to them, whatever voices the run heard. It’s on each heading in the Speakers card: Your microphone and The call in a recording, and Everyone in an imported file, which appears once someone is named or added.

• It locks the track to the people named under its heading, by you or by the app, and anyone added with Add someone. Speakers still under a placeholder name don’t count. On a heading with nobody named or added, Lock is greyed out.
• With one person, every line on the track becomes theirs.
• With several, each line goes to whichever of them it sounds most like, even a line that sounds like none of them. Telling them apart needs the speaker voice model, which downloads by itself; a line the app can’t match keeps its name.
• The lock is kept. Every Run applies it again.
• A lock doesn’t teach the app anyone’s voice.

Once locked, the heading lists its people (“Only Dana and Bob”) and its button becomes Unlock. Adding someone to a locked track adds them to the lock. Removing them takes them off it, and removing the last one unlocks the track.

When the call had one voice and the invite names one other person the app knows, the card asks “Only Dana on the call?”. Yes locks the call to them; Not now hides the question.

Someone whose voice the app doesn’t know, with no voice print and no line in this meeting named for them, gets no lines when several people are locked. The heading shows “Bob: no voice yet”. Find a line they said, click the speaker’s name on it and choose them: their other lines follow at the next Run.

Unlock puts the track’s lines back under its placeholder name, including lines that had those names before you locked: Mic Speaker, Sys Speaker, or Speaker 1 in an imported file. The next Run tells the voices apart again. Lines you named one at a time keep their person, locked or not.

While you record, the speakers’ cards can’t be changed, but Lock, Unlock and Add someone work. Lines on a locked track follow the lock as you record, earlier ones included, and when you stop, the lock covers the whole recording, as after a Run.

Ask the assistant

Open the assistant with the round button at the far right of the meeting’s title bar, or with Cmd+J on a Mac or Ctrl+J on Windows. It suggests questions to start with, such as “What did we decide in this meeting?”. Clicking one puts it in the box; press Enter to send it.

Answers cite the moments they draw on: click one to jump there. If the assistant suggests a change to your notes, it waits for you to keep or discard it. Once the assistant, an AI app or a skill has changed something in a meeting, All changes appears in the meeting’s title bar, before ⋯: it lists each change and opens its review. The assistant runs on the same built-in AI model as summaries. The assistant has the rest.

Free, and what Pro adds

A new install starts on the free version, with no account, no card and no trial. Recording, transcribing, telling speakers apart, summaries and dictation are free, with no limits. Pro adds extras, and you can buy it any time in Settings → Pro License. The glossary lists what Pro adds.

If you installed before version 0.65 and your 10-day Pro trial is still running, it runs to its end:

• Two days before the end, a reminder offers to download the free transcription model you’ll move to.
• When the trial ends, transcription moves to a free model: Parakeet Ultra to Parakeet v3, or a larger Whisper model to Whisper Small. Everything you made is kept.

Replay the walkthroughs

Settings → Help & Setup has the Meeting Notetaker walkthrough, the Dictation walkthrough and the Assistant & Projects walkthrough, and Open Setup to go through setup again.

If something doesn’t work

• The other side of the call is silent, on a Mac. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording, turn on Samurai Scribe, then quit the app and open it again. macOS applies this permission only when the app starts.
• The other side of the call is silent, on Windows. The app normally hears whichever output your call plays through. If the system audio check (in setup, or in Settings → Mic & Audio) says only one device is being captured, make your call app’s device the default output in Windows sound settings.
• “Microphone access is blocked.” On a Mac, allow Samurai Scribe in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone. On Windows, turn on “Let desktop apps access your microphone” in Windows Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone.
• Models Not Ready. A model isn’t downloaded: press Open AI Models, download it there, then run again. Models Downloading means wait for it to finish. Model Not Set Up means a hosted or custom model has no key or address yet: add it in Settings → AI Models.
• “Another meeting is processing.” Without Pro, start the next run when the current one is done.
• The Quick Record shortcut does nothing. It works only while Dictation is on: Settings → Hotkeys → Turn on Dictation.