Ember

Record the stories of your elders. Preserve them forever.

Ember is a macOS app for capturing audio stories from family members and loved ones, transcribing them with OpenAI Whisper, and turning the transcripts into beautifully written memoir chapters with Claude.

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Download the App

⬇ Download Ember for Mac

Requirements: macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, Apple Silicon or Intel Mac.

First-time setup

Ember uses two AI services. Before recording your first story, open Settings (⌘,) and add your API keys:

Setting	Where to get it
OpenAI API key	platform.openai.com/api-keys
Anthropic API key	console.anthropic.com/settings/keys

Keys are saved locally on your Mac and never sent anywhere except directly to those APIs.

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Screenshots

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How It Works

1. Record — Give your session a title, press the big amber button, and start talking. Pause or resume anytime. Press Finish Recording when done.
2. Transcribe — Click Transcribe on any recorded session. Ember sends your audio to OpenAI Whisper and stores the text locally.
3. Write memoir — Click Write Memoir. Claude reads the transcript and writes a first-person memoir chapter in the speaker's voice — literary, warm, and ready to keep.
4. Export — Read the memoir in the app, or export it as a PDF to print, share, or bind.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘,	Open Settings
⌘1	Record
⌘2	Stories
⌘R	Start / Pause recording
⌘.	Stop recording
⌘T	Transcribe selected session
⌘M	Generate memoir
⌘↩	View memoir

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Build It Yourself

If you want to explore the code, add features, or just learn how it works, here's how to build from source.

Prerequisites:

• macOS 14+
• Xcode 16 — download from the App Store
• XcodeGen — brew install xcodegen
• (Optional) Claude Code for AI-assisted development

Steps:

git clone https://github.com/youngandai/ember.git
cd ember
./build.sh

That's it. The script generates the Xcode project, builds the app in Release mode, and installs it to /Applications/Ember.app.

To package a distributable DMG:

./package.sh

This creates Ember.dmg in the repo root, ready to upload to GitHub Releases.

Project layout:

ember/
├── build.sh              # Build + install to /Applications
├── package.sh            # Build + create Ember.dmg
└── swift/
    ├── project.yml       # XcodeGen config
    ├── generate_icon.swift  # Regenerate app icon PNGs
    └── Ember/
        ├── Models/       # Session data model
        ├── Stores/       # Local JSON persistence
        ├── Services/     # AudioRecorder, Whisper, Claude
        └── Views/        # All SwiftUI screens

Developing with Claude Code:

This project was built with Claude Code. If you have it installed, you can keep building on it:

cd ember
claude

Then just describe what you want to add or change in plain English. The codebase is small and clean enough that Claude can navigate it effectively.

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Privacy

• All recordings and transcripts are stored locally on your Mac in ~/Library/Application Support/Ember/
• Audio is sent to OpenAI only when you click Transcribe
• Transcripts are sent to Anthropic only when you click Write Memoir
• No accounts, no cloud sync, no telemetry

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License

MIT