Guide
Record and transcribe lectures privately
To record a lecture privately, ask your instructor first, then record it on your own machine with an app that writes the transcript there too, so the recording, the words and your notes never leave your hands. Recordist does that on Mac, Windows and Linux. It records what the microphone hears, writes the transcript as the lecture goes, turns it into study notes, and lets you search every lecture you have kept by what was said. We make Recordist, and this guide covers asking, recording, studying from it and keeping it private.
Ask first
A lecture is the work of the person giving it, and often their copyright or their school's, so a recording is for your own study unless they agree otherwise. A seminar is the work of everyone in the room. Before you record, ask your instructor, and follow your school's policy on recording. Before a seminar, a tutorial or a study group, ask the people in it, and do not record if anyone says no.
If you need recordings because of a disability, your school's accessibility office can arrange it as an accommodation. Their recording agreements often ask you to keep the recordings for your own study, to keep them secure and to delete them when the course ends, which is easier when every recording is a file on your own machine.
The law differs from place to place, and recording consent law, in plain English sets it out by country, state and province.
Record it on your own machine
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1. Install and set up
Download Recordist for Mac, Windows or Linux. Setup fetches its models once, on a connection you trust, and after that the work needs no network.
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2. Sit close to the speaker
Recordist transcribes what your machine's microphone hears. A quiet voice at the far end of a large hall is hard for any microphone, so sit where the lecturer is clear.
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3. Start the recording yourself
On a Mac, choose Record… from the menu bar icon, or press Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac or Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows and Linux (not under Wayland). By default it asks before it records, with a small card.
The transcript builds while the lecturer talks. In a room every voice reaches the one microphone, so every line is labelled You. If the lecture is on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, Recordist notices the call and, by default, asks before it records, and you and the other side are recorded on separate channels.
Turn it into study notes
Choose the Lecture / talk template for the recording, and the notes come as study notes: a summary, the open questions, and the key concepts, definitions and examples. With the built-in engine they are written on your machine, and each item is checked against the line of the transcript it came from. An item the check cannot match to its line is left out, though the check is not perfect.
When the lecturer says something you will want again, drop a marker. It sits under the transcript with its time, and while the audio is kept it plays the recording from that moment.
Find it before the exam
Search everything finds a sentence across every lecture you have kept, from an index on your disk, by the words that were said. Type the term the lecturer used and you land on the line, with the lecture around it.
On Pro, Ask answers a question in plain words from your last few recordings or the ones a search found, and points to where it was said.
Why it stays on your machine
A lecture is someone's work, and a seminar is a room of people who trusted each other enough to think out loud. Keeping the recording on your own machine respects both. The audio, the transcript and your notes stay in a folder on your machine, the audio is never sent to us, and the audio is kept for 30 days by default, or as long as you choose. Delete a lecture and it is gone.
Students, faculty and staff at colleges and universities can start with 14 days of Pro and their own code for 50 percent off Pro monthly for 12 months, with the address their school gave them. Recordist for students and faculty has the form and the rules.
Free and Pro
Free. No account and no email needed.
Recording, transcription and search are free, with no time limit, and Free writes notes for 3 recordings a month. Every install includes 7 days of Pro, with no card, starting with your first recorded call of 10 minutes or more. Pro writes up every lecture and answers questions with Ask. Pro is $9 a month or $90 a year for anyone who subscribes by 8 January 2027, and that price stays for as long as the subscription stays active; from 9 January 2027 new subscribers pay $15 a month or $144 a year.
Questions
Is it allowed to record a lecture?
Does the recording or the transcript leave my machine?
Does it work without Wi-Fi in the lecture hall?
Will it tell the lecturer’s voice apart from the students’?
How do I find one moment in a two-hour lecture?
Is there anything for students and faculty?
Related: Recording and transcribing with no network, How to ask to record a call, and privacy and data.
Transcripts and notes are produced by software and can be wrong; the audio is kept so that you can check them against it. If something here is out of date, write to support@recordist.app and we will correct it.