QuickTranscript

QuickTranscript is a small macOS app for recording meeting audio from your microphone and transcribing it locally with MLX Whisper.

It was built for the pragmatic case: you join a Zoom/Meet call on laptop speakers, start QuickTranscript, and get a transcript saved to disk while the meeting runs.

What It Does

• Lives in the macOS menu bar.
• Records microphone audio in 30-second chunks.
• Transcribes completed chunks locally with mlx-whisper.
• Appends text to transcript.txt during the meeting.
• Keeps raw .caf audio chunks so a session can be re-transcribed later.
• Shows recent recordings in a History menu.

Install With Homebrew

brew tap rohitjavvadi/tap
brew install --cask quicktranscript

The cask installs QuickTranscript.app and runs the local runtime setup script, so the MLX Whisper dependencies are installed as part of installation.

Runtime Dependencies

The app uses a local Python/MLX Whisper runtime stored at:

~/Library/Application Support/QuickTranscript/.venv

If the runtime is missing, QuickTranscript installs it automatically the first time you start recording. You can also install or repair it manually:

./scripts/setup_runtime.sh

This downloads mlx-whisper and its dependencies.

If you installed the app directly, you can also run:

/Applications/QuickTranscript.app/Contents/Resources/setup_runtime.sh

Build The App

./package_app.sh

The built app is created at:

dist/QuickTranscript.app

Install it locally:

ditto dist/QuickTranscript.app /Applications/QuickTranscript.app
open /Applications/QuickTranscript.app

Maintainer release steps are in RELEASING.md.

Use

1. Join your meeting using laptop speakers.
2. Open QuickTranscript.
3. Click the menu bar icon.
4. Choose Start Recording.
5. Choose Stop Recording when done.

Output is written to:

~/Desktop/MeetingTranscripts/meeting-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS/

The main file is:

transcript.txt

Menu Actions

• Start Recording
• Stop Recording
• Open Transcript
• Open Session Folder
• Copy Transcript Path
• History

History shows recent sessions with start time, audio chunk count, transcript size, and quick actions.

Notes

• QuickTranscript captures the microphone, not privileged system audio.
• For meeting transcription, use laptop speakers so the microphone hears the call audio.
• The default model is mlx-community/whisper-tiny for low latency.
• To use another model, set QUICK_TRANSCRIPT_MODEL before launching from a shell.

Terminal Fallback

The original terminal workflow still exists:

./start.sh

License

MIT