Recording

The Recording page decides what happens while a meeting records. The recording itself is the same at every setting: your microphone and everything the Mac plays, as two tracks (see Recording a meeting).

TranscriptCopy Anchor Link

During the meeting (the default), After the meeting or Not automatically.

• During the meeting: lines appear as people talk. You can read along, search mid-meeting and turn on subtitles.
• After the meeting: nothing is transcribed while the call runs; the whole recording is transcribed once it ends. The quietest choice during the call, and the transcript comes later. When that work runs is set on After recording: by default, on battery it waits until you plug in or step away, and Finish now starts it at once.
• Not automatically: only the recording. Open the meeting and choose Transcribe when you want the text.

When to change it: choose After on a long meeting on battery or when you never look at the live text; Not automatically for recordings you may never need as text.

If it fails: with no speech model installed, Record stays off until one is downloaded. If a transcript cannot be made, the audio stays in place for a retry.

PaceCopy Anchor Link

Only with During the meeting. Automatic (the default), Gentle or Keep up.

• Automatic: keeps up while the Mac is on power, and goes gentle on battery, in Low Power Mode or when the Mac is hot. The battery guard watches too. Battery & heat holds these rules.
• Gentle: lines arrive in blocks, a few seconds behind. The least work for the Mac.
• Keep up: keeps the lines on time, on battery too.

Details… next to Pace opens Battery & heat, with the three rules behind it. Change them there and Pace reads Custom.

Gentle turns Subtitles and Translate off, because the lines may lag behind what is being said.

SubtitlesCopy Anchor Link

Off by default. Shows the meeting's lines in a floating bar over every window, in the original language or translated when Translate is on. During the meeting, the menu-bar row Live Subtitles hides or shows the bar. It is the same bar as Live Subtitles, which works without a meeting.

TranslateCopy Anchor Link

Off by default. One menu: Off, or Into a language — this Mac's own language is listed first. Each line is then also translated, and the translation sits under the line in the transcript. The For row above it decides whose lines are shown and translated: Others (what the Mac plays), Me (your microphone) or Both (the default).

If it fails: when the language pair is not installed on the Mac, Whisper translates into English instead.

Changing your mind mid-meetingCopy Anchor Link

A change on this page applies to the next meeting; the running one keeps its settings. From the menu bar or the meeting window you can still stop transcribing live and transcribe at the end instead, record only, or resume live. The recording carries on either way.

For the curiousCopy Anchor Link

• These rows replace the old six-step capture dial (Record only … Live + translation + subtitles); stored choices carry over.
• Both tracks are 16 kHz mono WAV at every setting: audio.wav (microphone) and system.wav (the Mac's sound), captured through ScreenCaptureKit.
• Gentle decodes in twelve-second blocks without provisional words. Live decoding never holds the speech model for more than about a third of the time.
• Translation uses Apple's on-device translator when the language pair is installed (System Settings → General → Language & Region → Translation Languages), otherwise Whisper's own translation into English. A translated line names its languages, for example Translation (German → English): in the Markdown.
• After a live meeting the recording is read again by default, which hears more than the short live windows; see Transcript quality.

What leaves your MacCopy Anchor Link

Nothing. Recording, transcription and translation run on the Mac. A missing translation language is installed by macOS, not downloaded by PrivateGoat.

RelatedCopy Anchor Link

• Transcripts — languages, translated lines, transcribing later.
• Live Subtitles — the subtitle bar on its own.
• Settings for meetings — the other pages.