Transcriber

A minimal macOS menu bar app for recording and (eventually) transcribing audio locally with Whisper.

Status

• M1 — mic recording (current): Menu bar icon, Start/Stop, saves 16 kHz mono WAV to ~/Documents/Transcripts/.
• M2 — local Whisper transcription on stop (WhisperKit).
• M3 — live streaming transcription in a popover.
• M4 — system audio capture via ScreenCaptureKit (capture meeting audio).
• M5 — polish: auto-detect meetings, hotkey, model picker, history.

Build & run

Requires macOS 13+, Xcode command line tools, Swift 5.9+.

./build.sh
open build/Transcriber.app

The icon (waveform) appears in the menu bar. Click it → Start Recording. macOS will prompt for microphone permission on first run. Click Stop Recording and the WAV is written to ~/Documents/Transcripts/.

Layout

Package.swift              # SPM executable
Sources/Transcriber/
  main.swift               # AppKit status item + AVAudioRecorder
Resources/
  Info.plist               # LSUIElement + NSMicrophoneUsageDescription
build.sh                   # swift build → .app bundle → ad-hoc sign

Design notes

• AppKit (NSStatusItem) instead of SwiftUI MenuBarExtra — simpler lifecycle when the binary is a plain SPM executable bundled manually.
• .accessory activation policy so no Dock icon.
• Ad-hoc codesigning (codesign --sign -) is enough for local dev; TCC microphone permission is tied to the bundle's code signature, so rebuilds keep the same grant.
• 16 kHz mono matches what Whisper wants — no resampling later.