Recording a session

Keyboard shortcuts shown below are Windows defaults. On macOS, check the shortcut shown in TalkBar or its settings; configurable shortcuts can be changed there.

When you click Start session, TalkBar opens the recording screen. The transcript appears by speaker as people talk, the timeline adds short AI notes every few minutes, and you can take notes, mark moments and ask questions while you record.

Before the transcript starts

When you start, TalkBar first asks you to let people know they are being recorded. The Recording — let everyone know notice reminds you that telling everyone present, and getting their consent where the law requires it, is your responsibility. Click Got it to continue.

The screen then shows Getting audio ready… and Waiting for someone to speak until the first words arrive. If it says No audio detected yet — check your microphone or audio source., check your microphone or audio source in Voice settings.

The recording screen

Header

A shield icon next to the title means this is a Private session: its AI runs on local models only.

Speakers and tools

Below the header, each voice TalkBar hears gets a speaker chip. Click a chip to rename the speaker, mark This is me, set a label, combine two speakers who are the same person, or Ignore speaker to hide their lines and keep their text out of AI. Names you give carry into the transcript and summary. See Speakers.

On the right of the same row:

Panels

The recording screen has five panels. By default, the main panel shows Transcript and Notes as tabs, and the side panel shows Timeline and Knowledge. Documents is hidden until you show it from Layout.

Transcript

Live speech, split by speaker. New lines appear at the bottom; click Jump to latest if you scrolled up. The panel's menus let you:

• open the Action items and Bookmarks menus for this session;
• change the order (Oldest first or Newest first) and how the transcript looks;
• choose Original, Both or Translation when live translation is on.

Right-click a line, or select text in it, to Set Action item, Add bookmark, Add to note or copy it. The Speaker options on a line let you move it to another speaker with Assign to….

Notes

Your own rich-text note for the session, saved as you type (Saving…, Saved). Notes are pinned to the timeline, so you can see when you wrote them. The panel menu offers Dictate, Ask AI, Expand notes, and View options such as Show toolbar and Bubble menu.

If you prepared the session, your prep notes open here. See Notes.

Timeline

The AI summary while you record: short notes added every few minutes once people talk. Each entry links back to the transcript (Show in transcript). The panel menu sets the order, bullet style, the Timeline language and the AI model used for the timeline. It also has Action items and Bookmarks menus.

If the timeline can't be written for a while, TalkBar shows Live summary is temporarily unavailable and keeps trying. Your transcript keeps recording.

Knowledge

Knowledge cards, mentions and action items for the session, in three tabs:

Use Add in the panel header for a New card, Add from knowledge, a New action item or Add existing action item. A card's menu can pin it, Convert to task, Add to note, confirm it is Still true, or Remove from session (the card stays in your knowledge). See Knowledge cards and Action items.

Documents

Reference files attached to the session, for reading while you talk. See Documents.

Bookmarks and action items

Mark important moments while you record:

• Select text in the transcript or timeline and choose Add bookmark. A bookmark can have a title, a comment and a color.
• Choose Set Action item to flag a line as a task, decision or another action item label.
• Open the Bookmarks menu in a panel header to see every bookmark and jump to it.

Layouts

Click Layout to arrange the panels:

Place each view lets you show, hide and move each panel, and drag to reorder tabs. Manage custom layouts… saves your arrangement under a name (up to 8 layouts). Rounded and Flat change the panel style. You can also set these in Settings → General → Live Session Appearance.

Focus mode hides the app sidebar and the panel headers so only the session content shows. Turn it on with Focus in the Layout menu or the Focus mode button in the title bar. Hover a panel to see its header; press Esc to exit.

Pause and breaks

Click the pause button (Pause recording) to stop capturing for a while, for example during a private side conversation. While paused, nothing is recorded or transcribed, and the timer stops. Click Resume to continue. The transcript shows the gap, such as Paused for 5 min.

TalkBar can also pause and stop on its own. In Settings → Voice → Recording → Session end:

Before an auto-stop, a Session inactive banner counts down (Auto ending the session in). Click Continue to keep recording, Stop Session to stop now, or Ignore for this session to turn auto-stop off for this session.

The session bar

The session bar is a small always-on-top window, so you can keep an eye on a recording while you work in other apps. Press Ctrl+Alt+B to show or hide it.

While a session records, the bar shows the latest transcript lines and lets you:

• pause and resume transcription;
• mute and unmute the microphone;
• switch the translation view, when live translation is on;
• Stop session;
• open the main TalkBar window.

Hiding the bar doesn't stop the recording. On the Free plan, the bar also shows when the recording will stop at the plan limit.

After you stop

When you click Stop, the recording ends and the session is In progress: it is saved, but not completed. TalkBar now:

1. saves the full transcript and the audio;
2. writes the summary, organized into the template's sections, in the Summary panel (Summary — in progress);
3. suggests a title, if you haven't renamed the session.

The header shows when the session ended and its total length, plus these actions:

The Summary panel's AI menu lets you change the summary language, length or model, and Regenerate summary. See Session details.

When you complete the session, TalkBar fills in the summary if it is still missing. If Auto-scan finished sessions is on, it also scans the session for knowledge cards for you to review. See Review and scans.

Very short sessions

If almost nothing was recorded (under a minute, or only a few words), TalkBar doesn't write a summary right away. It asks Keep this short session? or Nothing was recorded:

• Keep session keeps it. The dialog tells you whether keeping it also writes a summary or keeps it as a transcript only.
• Move to Trash moves it to Trash. This is the default: it happens on its own after about 15 seconds. Pointing at the button pauses the countdown.

After an automatic move to Trash, click Undo in the notification to bring the session back.

Plan limit

On the Free plan, a session can record up to 30 minutes. TalkBar warns you 5 minutes before the limit and counts down the last minute. At the limit, it stops the recording and saves the session with its summary. You can't continue that session, but you can complete it to keep it. See Plan limits.

Interrupted sessions

If a recording stops unexpectedly, for example when TalkBar closes or your computer restarts, everything transcribed so far is kept. The next time you open TalkBar, it shows Recording interrupted with the session title, when it started and how many transcript segments were saved.

An interrupted session shows Interrupted in the Sessions list. Open it to see Continue session, Complete session and Review in its header.

Two other notices can appear:

• Session audio still needs to be saved — the transcript and summary are safe, but saving the audio failed. Click Retry saving audio.
• Leftover recording data (on the Sessions page) — recordings that were cut off before a session could be created. They can't be opened; click Discard to free up space.

Related

• Starting a session
• Session details
• Recording and transcription
• Speakers
• Live translation