Frequently asked questions

Short answers, each with a link to the guide that has the detail. The terms at the end explain the words they use.

Is Recly free?

Yes. The apps are free and open source, under AGPL-3.0-or-later, and there is no monthly fee. On-device transcription costs nothing and has no minute limit: no audio leaves the device and nothing is paid per minute. An external provider transcribes with your own key, at the provider’s price. See how to transcribe.

How is it different from a Plaud?

A Plaud sells you a recorder, transcription and AI notes. Recly uses the watch, phone or computer you already own as the recorder, transcribes on the device or with your own API key, and keeps the files in your own storage. The notes come from the AI you already use: a ChatGPT agent that writes the minutes by itself, or the example skills for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and others.

Do I need a watch?

No. The Android phone, iPhone, Mac and Windows apps record on their own. A watch adds a recorder on your wrist: a Galaxy Watch hands its recordings to the Android phone, and an Apple Watch to the iPhone. See how to record.

Can I use the watch without the phone?

No. The watch cannot upload on its own: it hands its recordings to the phone app, so install both. A recording waits on the watch until the phone has taken it. If you sideload, the watch and phone apps must come from the same place. See the install guide.

Do I need a Google account?

No. Google Drive is the default, but on iPhone and Mac you can store recordings in your own iCloud, and on iPhone, Mac, Windows and the Android phone in a local folder you pick, with no Google account. The automatic minutes with a ChatGPT agent are the exception: they need recordings stored in Google Drive. See where recordings go.

Where do my recordings go, and can Recly see them?

Recly has no server. Data goes only to the storage you choose (your Google Drive, your iCloud on iPhone and Mac, or a local folder that stays on your device), to the transcription provider you chose with your own key, between your own paired watch and phone, and, if you turn on automatic minutes, to your ChatGPT agent through OpenAI: the recording’s name, title and Drive links, and its transcript when the agent asks for it; never the audio. In Google Drive, Recly asks only for drive.file, so it sees only the files it created. Nothing goes to the Recly developer, and the privacy policy lists every path.

Do my other devices see my recordings?

Phones and desktops connected to the same Google account list each other’s recordings in Google Drive. An iPhone and a Mac that both store recordings in iCloud, on the same Apple ID, list each other’s too. A local folder belongs to its own device: other devices do not list its recordings. See find your recordings.

Why is there no iCloud on Android or Windows?

Recly saves to iCloud through the iCloud Drive folder that Apple’s system keeps for the app and uploads by itself, and only iPhone and Mac have that. On Android and Windows, choose Google Drive or a local folder, which can be a folder another tool syncs. See where recordings go.

Which devices can transcribe on the device?

On iPhone and Mac, Recly uses Apple’s speech model, which needs iOS or macOS 26 or later, supported hardware and language assets. On Android and Windows it uses Qwen3-ASR 0.6B. Android phones and Windows PCs need a 64-bit device with at least 6 GiB of memory as the device reports it, which in practice means an 8 GB phone or PC, and a one-time download of about 1 GB. The watches leave transcription to their phone, and other devices can use an external provider. See how to transcribe.

Are speakers separated on my device?

Yes. iPhone and Mac separate speakers with a model inside the app. Android phones and Windows PCs separate them sentence by sentence, with a speaker model of about 41 MB that downloads with the speech model; without it, transcripts arrive without speakers. With an external provider, speakers are separated where the provider can. The People in the room you enter after you stop helps either way, and in a recording’s Details you can name the speakers or move a line to another one. See how to transcribe.

What is a highlight and where does it go?

A moment you mark while recording: Highlight on the phone, on either watch (or Double Tap on an Apple Watch with watchOS 11 or later), in the Mac popover or the Windows tray popup. Add or remove highlights later in a recording’s Details. They are saved in the recording’s ….meta.json next to the audio, and in the .md transcript of a local folder, but not in the .txt transcript. The ChatGPT agent and the local MCP server see them with the transcript, so your agent can weigh what you marked. See mark a moment.

What files can I import?

Audio and video files the device can decode: what Android’s, Apple’s or, on Windows, the bundled ffmpeg’s decoders open. Recly keeps only the sound, converted to its own format, as a recording of this device that uploads and is transcribed like any other; a video’s picture is not kept. A file with no audio, or one the device cannot decode, such as a copy-protected track, is refused with Could not import this file. See import audio.

Can my AI write the notes by itself?

Yes, with a ChatGPT agent. When a transcript lands in your Google Drive, the Recly Mac or Windows app tells your agent, and the agent writes the minutes by itself, usually within a minute. You need recordings stored in Google Drive; a ChatGPT dot (at the time of writing, ChatGPT Business Premium, or ChatGPT Pro outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK) or a Work chat on ChatGPT web; an OpenAI Platform account for the tunnel and its key; and a computer that stays on. Follow the ChatGPT agent guide, or run recly-events yourself on a server or on Linux. With other agents, the example skills write notes when you ask, and for recordings in a local folder or iCloud, Claude and Codex read them through the local MCP server.

Does editing a transcript start my agent again?

No. Fixing the text or naming a speaker rewrites the transcript files in your storage, and recly-events, which runs the automatic minutes, does not announce an edit as a new transcript. Transcribe again does start your agent: a new transcription is announced like the first one. One exception: recly-events run with a Google client of your own cannot tell an edit apart, and announces it too.

Does Recly record without telling anyone?

Nothing is covert: recording is always visible, and the Mac and Windows apps ask before they record a meeting they notice. Recly also asks whether you told the people in the room: before the first recording on the phones, and before every recording on the desktops; Settings can turn the question off. It cannot tell them for you, and the rules differ by country and region: see your responsibility when recording in the privacy policy, and how to record.

Why does Windows warn me, and is the Windows app ready?

The MSI is not code-signed, so SmartScreen shows “Windows protected your PC”: choose More info → Run anyway (install guide).

Beta. The Windows app is built and tested in CI but has not yet been checked on a real Windows PC. Please report what you find in Issues.

How do I update the Mac and Windows apps?

They do not update themselves. Install the newer DMG or MSI from the latest release over the old one; the MSI upgrades the existing install. To hear about new releases, choose Watch → Custom → Releases on rokrokss/recly on GitHub. See updating.

How do I report a bug safely?

Open an issue in Issues. Never attach recordings, transcripts or keys: describe the problem instead, and redact anything private you paste. Report a security vulnerability privately, as SECURITY.md describes, never in a public issue.

Terms

Term	Meaning
dot	A ChatGPT agent you create once, which can start work by itself when an event arrives.
Work chat	A chat in ChatGPT’s Work mode on ChatGPT web. Like a dot, it can subscribe to events.
MCP	Model Context Protocol, the standard ChatGPT uses to talk to outside apps such as recly-events.
MCP event	A short message an app sends to ChatGPT that starts your agent. recly-events sends recording.transcribed.
Secure MCP Tunnel	OpenAI’s relay that lets ChatGPT reach recly-events on your computer without a public address.
Tunnel key	A restricted OpenAI API key that may only read and use your tunnels.
drive.file	Google’s narrowest Drive permission: Recly sees only the files it created.
Sideload	Installing an app from a downloaded file (an APK) instead of from Google Play.
ADB	Android Debug Bridge, the command-line tool in Android SDK Platform-Tools that installs apps on a phone or watch over USB or Wi-Fi.
Linger	A systemd setting that keeps your user services running after you log out.