talat can record both remote calls and in-person conversations. The main ways to start a recording are auto-detection, manually from the app, and a global hotkey; you can also resume a recent meeting or start one from the command palette. Auto-detection only applies to remote calls. For an in-person conversation, you start the recording yourself.
Auto-detection
talat watches for meeting apps using your microphone. What happens is set for each app in Settings → Meeting apps:
- Auto-record. Records automatically when the app starts using the mic. The apps talat knows start here.
- Ask first. Shows a notification, and only records if you confirm. Apps you add start here.
- Do nothing. Nothing happens. You start recordings yourself.
If talat opens while a call is already running, it asks before recording, even for an app set to Auto-record.
talat recognises Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Discord, FaceTime, and calls held in your browser, so Google Meet and other web-based services are detected too. If your meeting app isn’t picked up, add it in Settings → Meeting apps, where it’s listed under Unknown apps while it uses the mic, or get in touch and we’ll add it.
If you connect a calendar, a scheduled meeting can promote itself to a live recording the moment its call actually begins, subject to the same meeting app setting. See the calendar page for how that works.
Manual recording
You can start a recording manually from the main window, or from the talat icon in the menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows). This works regardless of your auto-detection setting, and it’s how you capture in-person conversations.
Because talat runs entirely on-device, you can turn your Wi-Fi off for the duration of an in-person conversation if you want to.
Global hotkey
A global hotkey can be configured in Settings → Recording behaviour to toggle recording from anywhere, even when talat isn’t the app in front. There’s no default, so you pick the combination yourself.
Command palette
Press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K on Windows) to open the command palette from anywhere in the app, and choose Start a new recording.
Resume a recent meeting
If you stopped a meeting a moment ago and want to carry on in the same recording, the Record button in the header offers a choice between Start new recording and Resume this recording. Resuming appends the new audio to the existing meeting rather than creating a separate one, so a call that dropped and came back stays a single record.