Recording
Recordist records two channels, your microphone and your system audio, and only after you confirm. This page covers every setting around that.
How a meeting is noticed
Recordist watches for five signals. Each can be turned off in Settings → Detection.
| Signal | How it works | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Mic in use | Your operating system reports that an app opened the microphone. Works for any app, including ones Recordist has never heard of. | On |
| Apps | Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, Webex and FaceTime are recognised by name so the prompt can show the right icon and title. | On |
| Calendar | Reads your calendar for an event starting now, to fill in the meeting title and attendees. Read-only. | On |
| Extension | The Chrome extension tells the app when a browser call starts, with its title. | On when paired |
| Window titles | Looks at the title of the front window for a meeting name, so the prompt can be labelled even when the app is not recognised by name. | On |
Detection happens on your computer. Recordist never joins the meeting and never talks to the meeting provider.
The confirm prompt
When a signal fires, a card appears near the menu bar or system tray:
- Record starts capture immediately. The card becomes a small recording pill.
- Not this one dismisses the prompt for the rest of this call.
- Snooze 10m silences all prompts for ten minutes (Settings → Prompt → Snooze).
The prompt dismisses itself after 45 seconds if you do nothing. A short sound plays when it appears; turn that off under Settings → Prompt → Sound. After you answer, the same app is not asked again for 30 minutes so one call does not prompt twice.
There is no “always record” option on purpose. You can allow a specific app to record without asking (Settings → Detection → Record without asking for…), and the app confirms that choice with you before it takes effect. It is empty by default, so every recording starts with your confirmation unless you choose otherwise for a specific app.
The card can also show a consent reminder and a notice template you can read out or paste into the chat. See the recording-law guide.
Hotkeys
| Action | macOS | Windows / Linux |
|---|---|---|
| Start or stop recording | ⌘ ⇧ R | Ctrl Shift R |
| Drop a marker | ⌘ ⇧ M | Ctrl Shift M |
Change them in Settings → Hotkeys. Starting a recording by hotkey creates a manual meeting.
Markers
A marker is a bookmark at the current moment. Drop one when someone says something you want to come back to. Markers appear on the transcript timeline and in exports; you can label them afterwards (“pricing”, “follow up”).
Manual recording
Click the menu bar or tray icon → Record now to record without a detected meeting. Useful for in-person meetings, voice memos and phone calls routed through your computer. The same consent rules apply: you are the one recording.
Audio quality
- Your microphone and the system audio are captured separately, so what you said and what they said never get mixed up.
- Denoise (Settings → Capture) applies light noise reduction to your microphone before transcription. It does not touch the other side.
- Microphone (Settings → Capture → Microphone) lets you pin a specific device. By default Recordist follows the system default so it moves with your headset.
- Everyone on the other side of the call shares one speaker label for now; you can rename that speaker per meeting.
How long audio is kept
By default audio files are deleted 30 days after the meeting; the transcript, notes and search index are kept until you delete the meeting. Change it under Settings → Capture → Keep audio: 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, forever, or never keep (audio is deleted as soon as transcription finishes). Keeping audio longer than 30 days requires Pro.
What Recordist does while recording
- Writes both channels to disk continuously, so a crash loses at most a second.
- Transcribes speech as it happens for the live transcript.
- Shows the ember dot in the menu bar or system tray. It is never red; red in Recordist means an error.
Stopping
Recording stops when the meeting app releases the microphone, when you press the hotkey, or when you click Stop on the pill. Recordist then finishes the transcript, writes the notes, and tells you when they are ready. If the app is closed or the computer restarts mid-way, the meeting is recovered on the next launch.
Developers: the prompt timing, cooldown and other details can also be set in the settings file; see the settings reference.