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 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 occurs entirely on-device using the Whisper small model optimized for Apple Silicon Metal acceleration. All transcripts are saved as plain text files with speaker diarization capabilities.

trnscrb works by continuously monitoring your system for meeting indicators. When it detects microphone activity lasting more than 5 seconds alongside a running meeting application, it begins recording. The recording captures audio locally, and once the meeting ends, Whisper processes the audio file directly on your Mac. The transcription happens without requiring an internet connection, and the resulting text files are stored in a dedicated folder.

The primary benefit is complete privacy and offline functionality for meeting transcription. Use cases include automatically capturing standup meetings, client calls, team syncs, and any other virtual meetings you participate in. The integration with Claude Desktop allows you to search through past transcripts, summarize discussions, and extract action items using natural language queries.

trnscrb targets macOS users who regularly participate in online meetings and value privacy-conscious productivity tools. It requires macOS 13+ and works best on Apple Silicon Macs (M1 and later), though it also supports Intel Macs with slower performance. The Claude Desktop MCP integration provides powerful search and analysis capabilities for your meeting history.