Record audio (voice, meeting) with AI transcription

From the tray menu, Record audio… opens a floating, draggable window (drag it by the title bar) to record from the microphone, the system audio (what plays on the computer), or both at once — the chosen source is remembered for next time. Use ● Record, ‖ Pause and ■ Stop; the file goes to the Recordings folder of the workspace, compressed to .m4a when you stop.

Two ways to transcribe. In Settings → AI Assistants → Audio transcription, the How to transcribe selector chooses between the dedicated transcription model (Whisper-style: OpenAI gpt-transcribe, Groq whisper-large-v3 — free — or a local Whisper) and the general model with audio in the chat — the audio goes inside a multimodal model's conversation, which is how Google Gemini (gemini-3.5-flash) transcribes. Switching the provider pre-selects the right mode and suggests the model; long audio is sliced automatically in either mode. The suggested model can be overridden by hand — LightNote honors the id you type, even for a provider it doesn't yet recognize.

Once recording starts, the window collapses on its own into a compact pill (a blinking red dot, a timer, Pause/Stop) — easy to drag into a corner and keep almost out of sight during a long meeting; the minimize/expand button in the title bar toggles it manually, and stopping expands it back. Ctrl+Alt+R (global shortcut) is the quick voice note: press it to start recording from the microphone right away, press again to stop — no need to open the window with the mouse.

If an API-based AI provider is configured (in Settings → AI Assistants → Audio transcription), the Transcribe and Transcribe + Summarize buttons appear when you stop (disabled while the audio is still being compressed); the On stop combo can fire the transcription on its own as soon as the recording finishes. LightNote sends the audio for transcription (a Whisper-style model) and writes a .md note next to the audio with the text and, optionally, a summary. Turn the feature on/off in Settings → General → Features.

The same window is a mini-player: below the controls, a list of recordings in the folder shows each file with T (open the transcription) and R (open the summary) buttons when they exist, plus a ▶ to play right there (progress bar with seeking); each row's ⋮ menu plays, (re)transcribes or opens the note. Regenerating a transcription does not overwrite the previous one — it creates a new version alongside (note.md, note (2).md…), preserving the history. The capture source is a menu button (Microphone / System audio / Both), with Both as the default. The Open recordings folder link opens the folder in the main window.