Offline meeting recording in Notetaker

Last updated: November 4, 2026

Available on: Mac, Windows

If a meeting starts without internet, or the live transcript stops mid-meeting, Notetaker keeps recording to your device and transcribes the audio after the meeting. Offline recording needs working local storage.

Start a meeting offline

Important: Free up storage before a meeting you expect to record offline. If Flow can't save audio locally, offline recording can't start, and an offline recording stops automatically.

  1. Start a Notetaker recording.

  2. Choose Record offline on the “Live transcript unavailable” card to record on your device.

The card appears when Live Transcript is enabled and your device is offline; recording waits for your choice without stopping or replacing an existing recording. With Live Transcript disabled, or offline consent already given, recording starts directly. Pausing and resuming an offline-started meeting keeps offline mode.

Cancel or dismissing the card cancels that start attempt, and a newer start attempt replaces the earlier offer. If the confirmation can't appear, recording does not start.

Note: A signed personal or organization BAA does not block offline recording. When your account requires cloud sync for Notetaker, offline recording is not offered: Flow blocks the recording and explains that in the meeting window, or on the Notetaker screen if no meeting window is open. The message shows once per meeting and can be dismissed.

When the connection drops during recording

Recording continues locally, and the notepad shows “You're offline. Don't worry, we're still recording!” while the live transcript is disconnected. Live transcription reconnects on its own, more slowly after an extended outage; live translation is unavailable until it does.

Short interruptions catch up in the live transcript without a marker. After longer outages, a transcript note reads “Offline for <duration> — audio was captured and will be transcribed after the meeting”, and those sections stay missing until post-meeting transcription finishes.

“Connection lost. Audio saved up to here.” means a recording that had already started ended unexpectedly because of a connection or transcription error — not merely that it went offline. The message clears after 30 seconds or when another recording starts; without an open meeting window, Flow shows a separate “Connection lost” notification.

Get the transcript after recording

Post-meeting transcription must be enabled and Notetaker cloud sync allowed. Where cloud sync is not allowed, audio is not uploaded and the meeting stays local-only — no post-meeting transcript or summary, and no uploading or waiting status. If cloud sync is turned on later, Flow picks the meeting up and processes it.

  1. Stop the recording when the meeting ends.

  2. Reconnect to the internet so Flow can upload and process the saved audio.

  3. Open the meeting's Transcript tab to read the completed transcript.

An offline meeting that started successfully and captured audio processes automatically, even below five minutes; the post-meeting transcript then replaces the live version, and until then — or while newer sections are still processing — the complete live transcript is shown. A meeting that was offline when you stopped it finishes on its own once you reconnect, without relaunching Flow and without uploading twice.

  • Limits: Saved audio files over 500 MB cannot upload, and retrying does not bypass this limit. A meeting with very little speech (about 50 spoken words or fewer) still finishes processing and shows “Transcript too short to meaningfully summarize.” instead of a summary; a meeting with no usable speech shows “No meaningful audio recorded.” An existing summary is kept.

  • Waiting: While you're fully offline, “Waiting for a connection” appears in the floating recorder window and the hub, and the meeting stays listed until it uploads.

  • Pauses: Uploads pause when connectivity drops, when you're signed out, or when the computer sleeps, and resume on their own — not instantly — once you're back online or signed in, or the computer wakes; they continue while your screen is locked or the computer is idle. Attempts skipped while you're signed out don't count against a meeting's retry attempts, and signing back in starts them again right away.

If an upload is blocked or too slow

When your network blocks the upload — for example a VPN, proxy, firewall or security software — 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.”, along with a one-time notification that your network may be blocking the upload.

When the connection is too slow, the notice reads “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 at widening intervals — after 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, then every 2 hours — and the notice stays visible so you can retry yourself at any time.

  1. Switch networks or turn off your VPN if the notice mentions reaching our servers.

  2. Click Retry on the notice.

If processing is waiting or fails

While “Waiting for a connection” appears, Retry pushes a stuck upload forward without using up a retry attempt or creating a duplicate upload. You can retry manually once every 15 seconds.

  1. Click Retry after reconnecting.

  2. Check whether processing advances; if you're still offline, the upload keeps waiting.

Note: If servers are busy, Retry shows “Servers are busy. Flow will retry at {time}.” (or “…will retry automatically.” when the time isn't known) in the Meeting Recorder window and on the Notetaker “Failed. Retry” row. Flow retries on its own.

“We hit a snag processing your meeting” allows retrying when usable audio remains; “We couldn't process your meeting” means the meeting can't be processed and retrying is unavailable. Every meeting reaches one of these outcomes, a short-meeting notice, or a finished transcript.

Recover an interrupted meeting

Local audio stays on your device until the stop has been saved and the audio prepared for processing, so an interrupted stop doesn't lose the recording. If a stop never registered, reopening Flow finalizes the meeting and the usual upload, transcription and summary steps take over.

“Couldn't start recording”

This card follows a live-transcription failure or a recording confirmation that could not complete. Read its body: “We couldn't start live transcription. Your audio was saved on this device.” means content survived; “We couldn't capture any audio, so nothing was saved.” means it did not.

  1. Choose Try again to resume a surviving meeting, or start a new recording if none survived.

  2. Reconnect to the internet so a retained failed-start meeting can finish processing.

Ignoring or dismissing the card does not delete the meeting. Empty meetings and failed starts with under 10 seconds of audio are discarded when recording closes, except resumed meetings or meetings containing typed notes.

Warning: Discard deletes a newly started meeting that has no typed notes, removing its local recording and content and restoring its weekly quota allowance. On a resumed meeting, Discard only dismisses the card without deleting or reverting anything, including newly appended words.

Storage failure or Flow closing unexpectedly

While a meeting is recording, Flow warns you once as your drive nears full with “Storage almost full — About N min of recording left”; the alert can't be muted. A full disk shows “Storage Full”; other audio-saving errors show “There was an error”. Both notices offer Restart Flow and Contact us.

  1. Free storage on your computer if the disk is full.

  2. Restart Flow to allow another recovery attempt.

  3. Click Retry on the meeting row in the hub or its note card if it shows Storage full after you stopped the meeting.

  4. Check the meeting's Transcript tab after processing; contact support if saved audio remains unprocessed.

After an offline storage failure stops recording, surviving audio can be recovered at startup, after waking the computer or during later attempts. Recovery needs nonempty saved audio and is limited by retention, privacy protections and retry limits, so it is not guaranteed.

Warning: If Live Transcript was enabled at the start and the meeting was not started in offline mode, an audio-saving failure lets recording continue with its live transcript but skips post-meeting transcription. Content captured only during an outage can be lost; previously recovered audio is kept when no usable replacement exists. A live-transcribed meeting also continues without post-meeting transcription if its local audio file cannot be created at the start, and that failure shows no storage notice.

If the save doesn't complete, or Flow closes unexpectedly while recording, reopening Flow recovers and finalizes the meeting — including audio captured after a resume — so the transcript and summary still arrive. When a resume was interrupted, Flow recovers the later stop and offers Update for the kept summary. End time and duration are based on the saved audio. Empty audio cannot be recovered, and deleting a meeting discards its saved audio.

Computer sleep or switching Mac accounts

On Mac, with automatic stopping for sleep enabled, sleep ends recording the moment the computer sleeps, and the slept interval does not add to meeting duration or weekly quota use. This automatic sleep-stop does not apply on Windows.

Warning: Audio not captured during sleep cannot be recovered. A sleep-gap note is not saved audio.

Switching to another Mac account ends recording immediately and saves it locally, then Flow processes it once you're back online. Locking the screen or starting a screensaver without sleep does not trigger this stop; if sleep happened first, the sleep outcome takes precedence.

Storage and privacy

Notetaker transcripts and summaries are stored in Wispr's cloud when syncing is allowed. Local meeting audio is kept for 7 days once the meeting is fully processed, and up to 30 days until then; once removed, it cannot support later transcription or resuming. Resume is also unavailable for unusable audio or a deleted transcript.

Notetaker works alongside a signed personal or organization BAA, so you do not need to revoke your BAA to record meetings. Turning off personal or organization cloud storage does not itself block recording or syncing.

Still need help?

Contact support if saved audio remains unprocessed after reconnecting and retrying, or Flow still cannot save audio after you free storage. Include your platform, device, the message shown and the steps you tried.