Installing

Homebrew

brew install --cask doughatcher/tap/transcripts

That taps the repository and installs Transcripts into /Applications. To update later:

brew upgrade --cask transcripts

If you installed with Homebrew, prefer brew upgrade over the app's own updater. Both fetch the same build, but only Homebrew keeps its records straight, and an app that updates itself underneath Homebrew leaves the two disagreeing about what is installed.

To remove it completely, including recordings metadata and logs:

brew uninstall --zap --cask transcripts

--zap also deletes ~/Library/Application Support/Transcripts. Your recordings themselves live in the folder you chose and are never touched.

Direct download

Download Transcripts from transcripts.doughatcher.com, open the disk image, and drag Transcripts to Applications. The disk image is signed and notarized by Apple, the same as the app inside it. Each release is also on GitHub as a zip, for scripts and for anyone who prefers one.

The app checks for updates on launch and can install them itself.

Mac App Store or download

There are two ways to get the Mac app: the Mac App Store, or the direct download and Homebrew. Both are available now. It is the same app, with the same transcription, live transcript, overlay, speaker names, summaries and the other side of calls. But the store only accepts apps that stay inside Apple's sandbox, and a few things cannot:

• It cannot run your own scripts. Custom-script sorting, the Handoff pipeline, script stages, and a session's "When it ends, run" command are not in it. Open with takes a link such as obsidian://open?path={path_encoded}, not a shell command. If you use any of these, use the download.
• It cannot start a Homebrew-installed Ollama for you. It opens Ollama.app if you have it; with only the command-line install, start ollama serve yourself.
• It asks for folders instead of reading paths. On first launch it offers to keep recordings in iCloud Drive and opens on it: click Choose. Picking iCloud Drive or the Transcripts folder inside it comes to the same thing, because Transcripts uses that folder either way and creates it if needed. It's the folder your iPhone and iPad use, and it becomes both your library and where phone recordings arrive, so everything syncs as it does with the download. Choose Keep on This Mac Only and recordings stay in the app's own storage until you pick a folder in Settings. It does not find your Obsidian vault by itself either: choose it in Settings ▸ Sorting ▸ Obsidian.
• It asks before recording a call. A new install starts in ask-first mode: when a call begins, Transcripts shows a notification and records only if you say so. Switch it to record automatically in Settings ▸ General.
• The App Store updates it. It has no updater of its own, no beta channel, and does not offer to move itself into Applications.

Settings do not carry over between the two, because the store edition keeps its own. Your recordings do: they are in the folder you chose, so pointing the store edition at that folder brings the whole library back. Speaker names you taught the download stay with the download. Run one edition or the other, not both at once, or both will try to record the same call.

Managed Macs

A work Mac under MDM — Jamf, Intune, Kandji — usually has no admin rights, a read-only /Applications, and a proxy in front of GitHub. Transcripts installs anyway, because it is signed and notarized by Apple and asks for nothing an ordinary user cannot grant. The steps differ only in where it goes.

• Download from wherever your network allows. This site is a plain Cloudflare host; GitHub releases carry the identical build if the proxy prefers that one. Take the newest pre-release there, not the release marked "Latest".
• Just open it. Transcripts offers to move itself into ~/Applications — your own Applications folder, which needs no administrator — and reopens from there. macOS treats that folder exactly like the system one: Spotlight, Launchpad and login items all see it. (Homebrew installs to the same place; see below. To do it by hand, drag the app there yourself.)
• Gatekeeper lets it run. It checks the notarization ticket. No right-click-Open, no admin password.
• Grant the microphone when macOS asks. That is a normal per-user consent and is never locked by MDM.
• The other side of a call needs one more permission, and it is an ordinary Allow dialog: Transcripts reads the system audio mix directly, which macOS grants per-user like the microphone. Decline it and calls record your microphone only — which on a laptop in a meeting room still catches everyone — and the menu says so.
• You do not need Screen Recording. It was the old way of capturing call audio and it is the one switch a managed Mac tends to lock behind an admin password. If something offers it to you, you can decline.

With Homebrew, the same thing in one line:

brew install --cask doughatcher/tap/transcripts --appdir=~/Applications

For IT

Everything a software catalog (Jamf Self Service, Intune Company Portal, Kandji Self Service) usually asks for:

There is nothing to pre-approve. Transcripts asks for two things, both ordinary per-user prompts: the microphone, and system audio recording (the other side of a call). macOS does not let MDM grant either one in advance. A privacy (PPPC) profile can only deny the microphone. So no profile makes the prompts go away, and none is needed for them to work. Screen Recording is not used and needs no policy. Speech recognition runs on the device and is not a separate permission.

Network. The Mac app makes three kinds of outgoing request, none carrying a recording or a transcript:

• an update check to transcripts.doughatcher.com;
• a one-time download of the speaker-recognition models from huggingface.co;
• a one-time download of the summary model from huggingface.co, only on Macs without Apple Intelligence.

If a user points it at their own Ollama server, that traffic stays on localhost. Nothing listens for incoming connections, and there are no analytics or telemetry.

Data. Recordings and transcripts go to the folder the user chooses, often iCloud Drive or OneDrive, so your policy on those services applies to them. Settings and history live in ~/Library/Application Support/Transcripts and the log in ~/Library/Logs/Transcripts.log. brew uninstall --zap removes both.

Recording consent is the user's responsibility and is stated at install and in Settings. Users in all-party-consent places can set Transcripts to ask before it records a call.

To check a machine without guessing, run the built-in self-test:

TRANSCRIPTS_SELFCHECK=1 ~/Applications/Transcripts.app/Contents/MacOS/Transcripts

It records two seconds from the microphone and from the system together, and exits 0 when both work, 1 if the microphone flow is broken, 2 if the microphone is authorized but delivering silence, and 3 if the microphone is fine and only system audio is unavailable — the expected answer when Screen Recording is locked.

Use 1.1.0-beta.3 or later. Earlier notarized builds could not reach the microphone at all. Up to 1.1.0-beta.10 the self-test checked the two sources one after the other, and on its own the system-audio check got nothing, so those builds could answer 3 on a Mac where calls recorded both sides perfectly. Trust a recording over that answer on those builds.

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel
• Apple Intelligence, optionally — summaries use it when present and fall back to a built-in summarizer when it isn't

iPhone and iPad

The mobile app is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. It records and transcribes on its own, and shares a folder with the Mac if you have one — see iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Next: Getting started