Flow Summaries in Notetaker

Last updated: November 5, 2026

Available on: Mac and Windows. Some enterprise accounts cannot record; accounts covered by a BAA can record. The recorder explains the restriction.

Flow Summaries turn finished Notetaker recordings into structured recaps for reviewing discussions and follow-ups. Find yours in the Summary tab, stored separately from your typed notes.

Generate and open a summary

  1. Stop your recording.

  2. Open the Summary tab in the meeting notepad.

  3. Click Generate summary if the top bar says Not auto-generated. The button also appears above the meeting footer on every tab.

More than 5 minutes of recorded audio across all meeting segments generates a summary automatically, and you get a summary ready notification with View summary. Recordings of 5 minutes or less stopped from the notepad wait for manual generation, as does a meeting that failed to start; a meeting that started offline processes automatically with any audio. Older meetings do not get summaries retroactively.

Click Generate summary even while Flow is still saving the audio — generation waits for the save to finish rather than failing. The improved transcript appears as soon as it is ready, so you can read it while the summary is still generating.

Manual generation works offline and stays available until that audio is cleared; Flow then uploads automatically, without relaunching and without uploading the same audio twice. With Notetaker cloud sync turned off, meetings stay on your device and are picked up for processing once you turn sync on. Local audio stays on your device until the stop has been saved and the audio encoded; a meeting you are still recording on another device is not treated as finished until that recording stops. Deleting a meeting discards its audio, and failed starts with under 10 seconds of audio are discarded unless you typed notes or resumed an existing meeting.

Important: Accounts covered by an active HIPAA Business Associate Agreement get meeting summaries and automatic meeting titles too; the summary text is only ever processed by AI providers covered by Wispr's BAA. Your transcript, typed notes and meeting chat are unaffected.

Note: If a meeting never finishes processing — its upload, save or transcript improvement stops short — Flow keeps that recording's local audio on your device for 30 days, longer than the usual retention period, so it can still be retried or recovered. Audio you deleted yourself is not kept.

What the summary covers

  • Recap: A TL;DR and thematic sections use short points in meeting order. Length follows the meeting; sections without substance are omitted, and a completely empty result produces no summary.

  • Follow-ups and decisions: Next Steps uses verb-first actions; Decisions Made records decisions. Either section can be absent. Work already underway and unclaimed intentions are not next steps.

  • Owners: Individual commitments name the person responsible; group assignments use (Everyone) or the group's name, not the assigner. Unidentified owners use Unknown only when another step has an identifiable owner; otherwise all owner labels are omitted. Steps are grouped by owner, chronological within each group.

  • Language: The summary and its headings follow the dominant spoken language, not your app language, typed notes or calendar context. Names, technical terms and quotations keep their transcript language and script, and numbers, units and currencies stay as spoken.

  • Speaker names: Speakers are matched to the people invited to the meeting, and your own speech is named from your account profile name, including in Microsoft Teams calls. Other speakers are named only when the transcript is clear, otherwise described by their role or what they did, or kept as numbered labels such as Speaker 2 when identity evidence is insufficient or conflicting. A name can occasionally land on the wrong person.

  • Uncertain terms: Company, product, tool and other term names that came through garbled can still be flagged in the summary — for example likely Acme.

Note: Update Flow on every device you use. Older versions can show raw speaker codes instead of names.

Edit, copy, and update the summary

Edit the summary after generation finishes. Summary edits, Notes edits and speaker names sync across devices with the rest of the meeting. Regenerating a summary does not rewrite your typed notes.

  • Summary-only copy: The Summary tab's copy action copies only the body, with formatting where supported — not the title, notes, transcript or attendees. With no text selected and focus outside a text input, Cmd+C (Mac) or Ctrl+C (Windows) copies the whole summary, including from inside its editor.

  • Full-meeting copy: Copy as Markdown copies the title, current notes, summary, attendees and transcript. Collapsible content becomes text and links; your exported speaker label uses your profile name instead of You.

  • Search: On the Summary tab, Cmd+F/Ctrl+F, or / outside a text input, opens search; enter at least 2 characters.

Update after resuming a recording

If you have not edited the existing summary and the resumed portion added at least 20% more audio or 5 new minutes, Flow uploads the full recording on its own and replaces the partial transcript and summary once the new ones are ready — no click needed, and your old summary stays visible in the meantime.

If you edited the summary, your edits are kept and you decide when to replace them: the summary can show New recording since this summary. or New audio since this summary. Update Summary requires a meeting recorded in Flow, cloud sync enabled and the saved recording still available. The offer disappears if the recording is gone, and it cannot regenerate a deleted transcript. A resume that captured no new audio closes out with no duplicate summary and no update offer, and an existing summary is kept if the meeting is processed again with only short or silent audio.

Warning: Updating replaces your summary edits, including a summary synced from another device, so review your changes first.

  1. Click Update Summary above the meeting footer after recording stops; it is available across tabs. Any older update still in progress is cancelled so the newest one takes over.

  2. Wait while the replacement is prepared. Your old summary stays visible until it is ready, including beneath an alert if the update fails.

  3. Review the replacement summary and transcript, regenerated from the full recording across all segments.

Resume is unavailable if local audio is missing, empty, expired or unreadable; the transcript was deleted; or the total recording limit across segments was reached — start a new recording instead. Its availability follows the applicable local-audio retention period, not a fixed interval. If you click Resume while Flow is still saving the previous recording, it starts once the save finishes, continuing the same meeting and keeping the earlier transcript.

Note: Rejoining the same call continues the same note and summary — including after you stop from Flow's prompt, switch to another conference, or your laptop sleeps, and when the new call is recognized as the same Google Meet or Zoom link. If Flow stopped a recording on its own and you then start another call on the same calendar event, that call gets its own note and summary.

If a summary or transcript is missing

After any fix below, check that processing advances and the summary appears on the Summary tab.

Waiting for a connection

Waiting for a connection means saved local audio is waiting to upload while you are offline. The meeting stays listed until it uploads, and uploads keep running while your computer is locked or idle.

  1. Restore your connection while keeping Flow open.

  2. Click Retry processing; it also wakes a stalled upload. You can retry a meeting once every 15 seconds, and a resumed upload's status can take about 30 seconds to appear.

If Flow shows Servers are busy. Flow will retry at {time}. or Servers are busy. Flow will retry automatically. in the Meeting Recorder window or on the Notetaker Failed. Retry row, no action is needed: leave Flow open and the upload continues on its own.

Your network is blocking the upload

When Flow is connected but cannot reach our servers — often a VPN, work proxy or firewall — the meeting card and the Summary tab show Can't reach our servers to upload this meeting. If you're on a VPN or work network, try turning it off or switching networks, then retry. You also see a one-time notification: Can't upload your meeting. Your network may be blocking it. Your recording is safe on your device.

  1. Turn off your VPN, or switch to a different network such as a personal hotspot.

  2. Click Retry on the notice; no duplicate meeting is created.

Your connection is too slow

If the upload cannot get through on a slow connection, the meeting card and the Summary tab show Your connection is too slow to upload this meeting. Your recording is saved. Retry when you're on a faster network. Flow keeps trying on its own in the background over the following hours, and the notice stays so you can retry at any time.

  1. Move to a faster or less congested network.

  2. Click Retry on the notice.

Storage full

When there isn't enough free space to process a stopped meeting, its row in the Hub and its note card show Storage full with a Retry button instead of staying in processing.

  1. Free up space on your computer.

  2. Click Retry on the meeting row or note card.

Generation or an update failed

We hit a snag processing your meeting offers the icon-only Retry processing control, and the Summary tab body stays empty until it succeeds. We couldn't process your meeting means the meeting ended without processing and no retry is available.

Update failed. Showing the previous summary. offers a visible Retry button only when recovery is possible and the recording remains available. If it adds The full recording is no longer available to retry., no retry is offered.

Click the offered retry control; report the meeting if retry fails or is unavailable.

The meeting was too short, or had no audio

A very short or silent meeting still finishes processing and ends on a notice instead of a summary: Transcript too short to meaningfully summarize when too few words were spoken, or No meaningful audio recorded when there was nothing to transcribe. Neither result offers retry, copy or search.

Record a longer session with more spoken content. If the same meeting can be resumed, new audio makes Update Summary available and replaces either notice with a real summary.

Your computer went to sleep or switched accounts

By default, putting your Mac to sleep ends recording at that moment; saved audio, transcript and displayed end time match that boundary. On wake, Flow finishes processing under the generation rules above and shows a recovery notice — use Resume or start a new recording to keep going. Windows does not end recordings this way.

If automatic stopping on sleep is turned off, the recording continues on wake; sleep audio is missing, and gaps of 5 seconds or more are marked in the transcript.

Switching macOS user accounts stops recording immediately and saves it locally, without automatic generation regardless of length — click Generate summary while its local audio is still available. A preceding sleep takes priority; locking the screen or starting a screensaver is not an account switch.

If the improved transcript is still missing after a few minutes, sign out and back in. A connection drop during a meeting does not end your recording: capture continues, and a recording with at least about 10 seconds of meaningful audio is kept in past meetings and processed normally. Recordings where microphone audio was withheld for privacy are not recovered.

Note: While you are signed out, meetings waiting to upload pause; their speaker data and live transcripts stay on your device and upload shortly after you sign back in. Audio already recorded stays saved on your device.

Warning: If the drive fills up or another audio-saving error occurs during live transcription, recording continues but partial local audio is discarded; only the live transcript remains, without an improved transcript. A meeting that started offline without a live transcript stops instead: Recording stopped because Wispr couldn't save audio to this device. Free disk space before recording again.

Still stuck?

If generation cannot finish, an update fails again or content is missing, open the meeting in the Hub and use the report option.

  1. Choose the matching Issue type, such as Summary quality or Missing data or stuck processing.

  2. Describe the meeting app and what you tried in What went wrong?

  3. Click Send feedback.

Reports automatically include your platform, app version, processing status and meeting diagnostics, including transcripts and notes. Device and audio details may also be included when available, with the meeting app's selected microphone included only when that app is detected.