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Listen mode

Toby records microphone and/or system audio on macOS, saves recordings under ~/.toby/listen/recordings/<recording-id>/, and can transcribe them with your configured transcription provider.

Record in Toby.app​

Use Record Audio (or equivalent recording controls) in Toby.app. Capture runs inside the app so Microphone and Screen/System Audio permissions stay tied to Toby.app’s bundle identity.

While a recording is in progress, open Recordings in the sidebar to see live capture details and use Stop Recording there—the same stop action as the toolbar button and menu bar.

By default Toby records both your microphone and system audio (other apps such as meetings). You can turn either source off under Settings → Transcription (Record microphone / Record system audio).

When you stop and save:

  1. Capture stops immediately. Long recordings then take a while to prepare final audio (especially when both mic and system tracks were captured). Toby shows a processing state — not the red live-recording indicator — on the toolbar, sidebar, menu bar, Dock, and Recordings window. Pressing Stop or Record again during this step does nothing; wait for the “Processing recording” toast to finish.
  2. Source tracks (mic.wav / system.wav) and a combined.m4a file are written under the recordings folder. If both sources were captured, combined is stereo dual-mono (left = your mic, right = system audio)—not a mix that stacks both onto one channel (that causes echo from headphone bleed). Raw tracks are always kept.
  3. Toby requests transcription through the local service when a model is configured.
  4. The result appears in the Recordings window (playback, transcript, delete). Opening a long recording shows the title and sidebar immediately; the transcript, summary, and player fill in after a short skeleton so the window stays responsive. The player defaults to System (clean meeting audio) and can switch to Mic or Both (L/R) when available. When the transcription model returns timed segments, the transcript view shows start timestamps on each line (for example [0:12] …); Copy transcript includes those times.

Summarize a recording​

After a recording is transcribed, open it in Recordings and use Summarize (or Re-Summarize if a summary already exists). Toby generates a concise markdown summary with the persona you choose under Settings → Transcription → Persona for recording summaries (or your default persona). The summary appears above the transcript and is stored with the recording.

You can still start a chat about a recording for deeper Q&A.

Retry transcription​

If a recording failed to transcribe or you changed your transcription settings:

  1. Open Recordings in the sidebar.
  2. Select the recording.
  3. Use the transcription / retry control in the recording detail (or ask in chat to re-transcribe that recording).

Re-transcribing clears any existing summary so it cannot outlive a new transcript. Run Summarize again after re-transcription if you still want a summary.

Permissions​

Depending on selected sources, macOS may request Microphone, Screen/System Audio Recording, and related permissions for Toby.app.

Transcription settings​

Provider, model, and API key for speech-to-text are under Settings → Transcription, along with the persona used for recording summaries. See Transcription.