trnscrb is a macOS application that lives in your menu bar and provides local meeting transcription capabilities. It automatically detects when you're in meetings and transcribes them on-device using OpenAI's Whisper model, ensuring complete privacy since no audio or transcript data leaves your computer.

The app auto-detects meetings by monitoring microphone activity for 5 seconds combined with the presence of meeting applications like Google Meet, Zoom, Slack Huddle, Microsoft Teams, and FaceTime. It records audio locally using either just your microphone or both microphone and system audio via the BlackHole virtual driver. Transcription happens on-device using Whisper's small model running on Apple Silicon Metal acceleration, requiring no internet connection. Transcripts are saved as plain text files with speaker diarization in the ~/meeting-notes/ directory.

trnscrb works by continuously monitoring your system for meeting indicators. When it detects microphone activity lasting at least 5 seconds along with a running meeting application, it automatically begins recording. The recording captures either microphone audio only or both microphone and system audio if BlackHole is configured. After the meeting ends, Whisper processes the audio locally on your Apple Silicon Mac's GPU for fast transcription. The resulting transcript includes speaker identification and is saved as a searchable text file.

The primary benefit is complete privacy since all processing happens locally without cloud dependencies. Use cases include automatically transcribing team meetings, standups, client calls, and interviews while maintaining full control over your data. The Claude Desktop integration allows you to search across all past transcripts, summarize discussions, and extract action items using natural language queries.

trnscrb targets macOS users who participate in frequent meetings and value privacy, particularly those using Apple Silicon Macs (M1 and later). It integrates seamlessly with Claude Desktop through MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools that enable recording control, transcript searching, and meeting analysis. The app requires macOS 13+ and works best on Apple Silicon hardware for optimal performance.