Getting started
Recordist is an app that lives in your Mac’s menu bar, or in the notification area on Windows and Linux. It waits for a meeting and asks whether to record. When the call ends it writes the notes on your own machine. This guide takes about five minutes.
1. Install
Recordist is free to download for Mac, Windows and Linux. Get it from the download page, with no account and no email. The page shows the version and each installer’s SHA-256 next to its button. On a Mac it requires macOS 14.6 or later on Apple silicon.
Open the .dmg, drag Recordist to Applications, then open it from Applications. Recordist is signed with our Apple Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so the first launch is a double-click.
On Windows, run the installer. It is signed by us through Microsoft, and while the signature is new, Edge or SmartScreen may ask once (the steps). On Linux, use the AppImage or the .deb (the steps). Recordist on Windows and Linux lists what differs from the Mac. The rest of this guide describes the Mac.
2. Grant two permissions
macOS asks for each permission once. Calendar is optional: it names your meetings, and Recordist works without it.
| Permission | What it is for | Where to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Microphone | Records your side of the conversation | macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone |
| Screen & System Audio Recording | Records the other participants (what comes out of your speakers or headphones). Recordist never captures your screen. If you also grant full Screen Recording, it reads meeting window titles to name the meeting | macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording |
If you decline a permission, Recordist keeps working with whatever it has. Without the microphone it records only the other side; without system audio it records only you. While macOS does not let Recordist use the microphone, the main window says so, with a button that opens the Microphone pane of System Settings, or that shows the macOS prompt if macOS has not asked yet. When a device management profile or Screen Time blocks the microphone, the window says to ask whoever manages the Mac to allow it, and shows no button. The full list, including the optional permissions, is in which permissions Recordist asks for.
3. Choose a transcription model
Setup downloads a small speech model first, so you can make your first recording within a few minutes: Base (English, 142 MB) when your transcripts will be in English, and Small (multilingual, 466 MB) otherwise. Recordist goes by your system’s language, and a link under the model switches between the two. If a model that fits is already on your Mac, setup uses it instead. Download and continue starts the download and moves on to the next step of setup, and you can record once that model has downloaded.
The default model, Large v3 Turbo (quantised, about 574 MB), follows in the background unless you untick it. From version 1.0.10 it is part of Pro and your trial, and Free uses Small. New recordings switch to it once it has downloaded, and a recording that is running keeps its model. Setup, the sidebar and Settings → Transcription show how much of each model has downloaded, and a download cut off by quitting continues after the next launch. Transcription models explains the other choices, which you can change later in Settings → Transcription.
A 1 MB voice-activity model follows the first one, and the built-in notes engine and its model download in the background after setup. Each appears in the Privacy Ledger as a download, with nothing about you sent, and each is checked before it is used.
Setup ends with a Try it step, which shows whether the first model is ready and whether macOS lets Recordist use the microphone. Record a test starts a short recording and opens it, so you can watch your words appear as you speak; press Stop when you are done. Skip for now finishes setup without recording. The first recording you make asks once, at the top of the meeting, whether it worked. If you answer that something is wrong, it lists what to check and can open an email draft to hello@recordist.app in your own mail app; Recordist sends nothing itself.
4. Record a meeting
Join a call in Zoom, Teams, Meet or any other app. Within a few seconds a small card appears:
Zoom is using your microphone. Record this meeting? Record · Not this one · Snooze ▾
Click Record. The menu bar icon turns into an ember dot while a recording is active, and a live transcript is one click away.
When the meeting ends, or you press Cmd+Shift+R (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows and Linux), Recordist finishes transcribing and then writes the notes.
Closing the window keeps Recordist waiting in the menu bar for your next call. Quit Recordist in its menu stops it.
Nothing is recorded until you click Record. If you ignore the card it dismisses itself after 45 seconds. "Not this one" hides it for the rest of that call. "Snooze" hides it across every app for the time you choose: the Snooze for time in Settings → Record prompt (10 minutes unless you change it), 1 hour, or until tomorrow.
No call today? Import a recording you already have: on the Meetings page, choose Import audio and pick a WAV, MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC or MP4 file. Other formats open when ffmpeg is installed. One of 10 minutes or more starts your 7 days of Pro, and the notes follow the transcript, as they do after a call.
Before your first recording, the app also asks you to accept the terms and to confirm that you are responsible for any consent or notice required where you record. Laws differ by country and by state or province; our plain-English guide helps you ask the right questions and is not legal advice.
5. Read your notes
Open the main window from the menu bar icon (Open Recordist). Every meeting shows:
- Summary, Decisions, Open questions and Action items, written by the AI model you chose (local by default; see AI notes). Before they are saved, each decision, action item and open question is checked against the transcript, and each ends with the time it was said, which takes you to that line. Notes may still be wrong; check the recording before acting on them.
- The full transcript with timestamps. Click any line to hear that moment, while the audio is kept.
- Markers you dropped during the call with Cmd+Shift+M on the Mac, or Ctrl+Alt+M on Windows and Linux (Ctrl+Shift+M mutes Teams there).
Your 7 days of Pro include every Pro feature. After that, the Free plan keeps unlimited recording, transcription, search and export, with 3 AI notes a month. Prep Briefs, Ask and the follow-up drafts are part of Pro.
6. Optional: connect your AI assistant
If you use Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor, one configuration block lets it search and read your meetings on your own machine. See Connecting Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor.
Where things live
Everything Recordist knows is in one folder on your own machine. Settings → General shows its path, with a Show in Finder link. Privacy and data lists what is inside and how to export or delete it.