tape — Lightweight Meeting Recorder
Local-first voice recorder for macOS
Record, transcribe, and save as plain Markdown files.
macOS 15+ Swift WhisperKit License
Most transcription tools do a lot. Dashboards, coaching tools, integrations, cloud sync, and a subscription to hold it all together.
tape doesn't do most of that. It records, transcribes locally, and saves a Markdown file to your machine. That's the whole thing.
Get a transription of any calls, or meetings you're having. You can even just hit record and brain dump, send a note to yourself. It all ends up as a mark down file saved locally in a folder. Your agents can grab that file and do whatever with it. No account, no subscription, no cloud.
- Lives in the macOS menu bar — out of the way until you need it
- Hit Record, hit Stop — that's it
- Transcribes offline using WhisperKit — no audio ever leaves your Mac
- Saves each recording as a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter
- Everything stays on your machine
Every recording becomes a plain text file you own.
--- title: "Apr 16, 2:30 PM" date: 2026年04月16日 time: 14:30 duration: 47min speakers: - Kyle partial: false --- ## Context ## Transcript **[0:00] Kyle:** ... **[1:23] Others:** ...
- Go to Releases and download
tape.zip - Unzip it and drag
Tape.appto your Applications folder - Right-click → Open on first launch — macOS will warn you it's not from the App Store, just click Open to proceed. After that it opens normally.
The first time you record, tape will ask for microphone permission. The first time you transcribe, it downloads the Whisper tiny model (~75 MB) automatically — this only happens once. You can switch to a more accurate model in Settings (we recommend medium).
You'll need Xcode and macOS 15+.
git clone https://github.com/kylelegare/tape open tape/Tape.xcodeproj
Press ⌘R or the Play button to build and run.
Click the cassette icon in your menu bar → hit Record → hit Stop when you're done.
tape transcribes the audio in the background and saves a .md file to your output folder. You can start a new recording immediately — you don't have to wait for transcription to finish.
| Tab | Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| General | Output folder | ~/Documents/tape/ |
Where .md files are saved |
| General | Launch at login | Off | Start tape when you log in |
| Recording | Your name | — | Labels your speaker in the transcript |
| Recording | Whisper model | tiny |
Larger = more accurate, slower to transcribe |
| Recording | Min recording | 5s |
Recordings shorter than this are discarded |
| Vocabulary | Custom vocabulary | — | Fix common transcription mistakes for names and terms |
tape defaults to tiny for fast transcription. For better accuracy — especially with accents, names, or technical terms — switch to medium. The model downloads once in the background when you change it.
| Model | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| tiny | ~75 MB | Default. Fast, good for clear audio |
| base | ~142 MB | Slightly better accuracy |
| small | ~466 MB | Noticeably better |
| medium | ~1.5 GB | Recommended for best everyday accuracy |
| large-v3 | ~3.1 GB | Highest quality, slowest |
Models are pulled from the argmaxinc/whisperkit-coreml HuggingFace repo (OpenAI Whisper weights pre-converted to Core ML) and cached at ~/Library/Application Support/argmaxinc/WhisperKit/. If a download stalls, pick the model again in Settings to retry.
tape is designed around not needing to trust it:
- No cloud. Audio and transcripts never leave your machine. Transcription runs entirely offline.
- No account. Nothing to sign up for.
- No background activity. tape only records when you explicitly hit Record. It does nothing when idle.
- Mic permission is handled by macOS. You can revoke it anytime in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.
- Open source. You can read exactly what it does.
tape won't grow into a platform. No roadmap toward team plans, analytics, or AI meeting assistants. It records, transcribes, saves a file. That's the whole thing.
Recording laws vary by jurisdiction. In some US states (California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington, and others) and most of Europe, every participant must consent to being recorded. tape does not announce itself to other participants — you're responsible for getting consent where it's required.
When in doubt: say "hey, I'm recording this for my notes" before you hit Record.
MIT