Troubleshooting Notetaker recording and audio

Available on: Mac (macOS 13 or later) and Windows. Access also depends on your plan and organization settings.

Use these checks when Notetaker will not start, misses audio, stops unexpectedly, or cannot recover a recording.

Recording will not start

1. Update and restart Wispr Flow. At launch, allow a moment for account settings to load. A blank Notetaker page or a temporary access message can clear once loading finishes.
2. Finish setup. If you see “Finish setup to use Notetaker,” complete onboarding. In the recorder, follow “Complete setup to start Notetaker” and grant microphone and system audio access. Opening the recorder alone does not mean it is recording.
3. Check your allowance. “You have no meeting notes left this week” means you have reached your plan’s limit. The Notetaker hub shows the remaining count and reset date.
4. Read any access message. If Notetaker is missing, ask your administrator whether it is enabled. Disabling it does not delete past meetings. A signed personal or organization HIPAA BAA blocks recording; changing Cloud Sync does not remove that restriction. Organization policy locks require an administrator.

If “Still finishing the last recording. Try again in a moment” appears, wait a few seconds before trying again.

Grant microphone and system audio access on Mac

Microphone access captures your voice; system audio access captures other participants. macOS 12 and earlier cannot provide the required system audio capture.

• Microphone: click Turn on beside the missing permission and approve access.
• macOS 14.4 or later: click Turn on in the recorder’s setup screen, then allow the system audio prompt. If previously denied, use the settings link to enable access and follow the restart instruction.
• macOS 13–14.3: click Allow in setup, then enable Wispr Flow under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording and restart Flow. If Flow is not listed, return to the recorder and click Allow before reopening System Settings.

When the recorder opens behind your meeting window, bring it forward to complete setup. See Getting started with Notetaker for the full setup flow.

Your voice or other participants are missing

Your voice is missing: check the input device and its physical mute switch. On Mac, open System Settings → Sound → Input. During recording, the notepad’s ⋯ → Microphone menu also lets you check or change the device. A connected wireless receiver that is out of range can stay selected while capturing silence.

If your microphone becomes unavailable mid-meeting, Flow can continue capturing system audio without your voice. Switch to a working microphone; do not assume an active recording means both audio sources are working.

Other participants are missing:

1. Check system audio permission using the steps above.
2. If you use a USB-C hub and Flow suggests reconnecting devices, unplug and reconnect the hub. Confirm the output device in System Settings → Sound → Output.
3. Flow retries interrupted system audio capture while recording your microphone. If capture does not recover, restart the recording.
4. If system audio permission was revoked during the meeting, restore it, stop the recording, restart Flow, and begin a new recording.

Audio that was not captured cannot be recovered afterward. If the words are present but speaker names are wrong, use transcript and summary troubleshooting.

A recording stopped unexpectedly

• The call ended or went quiet: review Settings → Notetaker → Stop the Notetaker when the meeting ends. Use Keep going on a check-in if the meeting is continuing, or Resume after an automatic stop when available.
• The recording reached its length limit: the limit counts all recorded segments, including resumed ones. Extend it from the warning if a longer option is available. Dismissing the warning does not prevent the stop.
• Your Mac slept: recording ends at sleep. The wake notification offers Resume; audio from while the Mac was asleep was not captured.
• You switched macOS users: recording stops and saves. A screen lock or screensaver alone does not stop it.
• Storage filled up: offline recordings stop. A live-transcribed meeting can continue, but its later audio-refinement pass is unavailable; transcript saving can also fail on a full disk. Free up space before continuing.

Recover a failed or interrupted recording

If live transcription stops, check your connection. Flow can keep capturing audio locally while reconnecting. When a recovery card says audio was saved on your device, reconnect and allow processing to resume. See Offline meeting recording.

Read the recovery card before acting. Retry starts a fresh recording. Discard deletes the failed meeting and its audio. If the card says nothing was saved, do not expect a transcript to appear later.

Resume is missing: the original audio may be deleted, expired, or unreadable; the transcript may be deleted; or the meeting may have reached its recording limit. Start a new recording instead. A greyed-out Resume immediately after Stop can simply mean saving is still finishing.

For pending uploads, restore a stable connection, then update and restart Flow if processing remains stuck. If a Cloud Sync or organization-policy message appears, follow that message or contact your administrator. For missing summaries and processing errors, use transcript and summary troubleshooting.

Still need help?

Open Help → Talk to Support. Include your operating system and Flow version, meeting app, microphone and audio devices, exact error, approximate meeting length, and the steps you tried.