Transcribe system audio (Mac)

Transcription saves a transcript of audio playing on your Mac, such as a meeting or video. It records what your Mac plays, not your microphone, and writes to a file.

Transcription needs System Audio Recording permission. First set up Mac dictation or terminal dictation, depending on how you installed Aria.

Record

You need two terminals: one shows the transcript, the other stops it.

1. Start the audio you want to transcribe, then run:

   aria transcribe start --follow
   

2. Allow System Audio Recording if macOS asks. The terminal prints transcribing -> and the file’s path. You should see text appear as the audio plays.

3. When you’re done, stop it in a second terminal:

   aria transcribe stop
   aria transcribe status
   

4. Check that status says not transcribing, then open the file.

Ctrl-C stops the display, not the recording. Always end with aria transcribe stop. To show live text again, run aria transcribe follow.

To start from the app, open Aria and choose Transcribe System Audio. Choose Live Transcript to see the text. While a transcription runs, the Aria menu shows Transcribing your Mac’s audio. Click the stop button beside it to end it.

Transcript files

By default, Aria saves files under ~/.aria/transcripts. To choose another path:

aria transcribe start \
  --output "$PWD/meeting.txt"

If the file exists, Transcription appends to it. Don’t run this while another transcription is running.

With history on, a transcript saved under the default folder also appears in history for up to 30 days. Deleting that entry, or clearing history, deletes its file. When the entry expires, the file stays. A file you name with --output never appears in history. Turning off history doesn’t stop Transcription from saving files. They don’t get history’s private-file protections, so delete them when you no longer need them.

Model

Transcription uses your speech model. If it can’t run that model, it uses Parakeet. If Parakeet isn’t on your Mac either, add the Moonshine Base model for English audio. Setup doesn’t download it for you.

1. Download the model’s three files:

   mkdir -p ~/.aria/models/moonshine/base
   cd ~/.aria/models/moonshine/base
   base=https://huggingface.co/onnx-community/moonshine-base-ONNX/resolve/b1e9b6aae3c3c7298f10c3798393fdf38e8fbbad
   curl -fLO "$base/onnx/encoder_model.onnx"
   curl -fLO "$base/onnx/decoder_model_merged.onnx"
   curl -fLO "$base/tokenizer.json"
   

2. Add this section to ~/.aria/settings.toml, or edit the transcription section there:

   [transcription]
   backend = "moonshine"
   model = "~/.aria/models/moonshine/base"
   

3. Run aria settings check. The next transcription uses the model, with no restart.

Voice profiles can name the speakers. For permission or model failures, see Troubleshooting.