908762073f
The bundled ffmpeg in the sidecar extract dir lacked execute permissions. Now sets chmod 755 on Unix when find_ffmpeg locates the bundled binary. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Voice to Notes
A desktop application that transcribes audio and video recordings with speaker identification, synchronized playback, and AI-powered analysis. Export to SRT, WebVTT, ASS captions, plain text, or Markdown.
Features
- Speech-to-Text — Accurate transcription via faster-whisper with word-level timestamps. Supports 99 languages.
- Speaker Identification — Detect and label speakers using pyannote.audio. Rename speakers for clean exports.
- GPU Acceleration — CUDA support for NVIDIA GPUs (Windows/Linux). Falls back to CPU automatically.
- Synchronized Playback — Click any word to seek. Waveform visualization via wavesurfer.js.
- AI Chat — Ask questions about your transcript. Works with Ollama (local), OpenAI, Anthropic, or any OpenAI-compatible API.
- Export — SRT, WebVTT, ASS, plain text, Markdown — all with speaker labels.
- Cross-Platform — Linux, Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon).
Quick Start
- Download the installer from Releases
- On first launch, choose CPU or CUDA sidecar (the AI engine downloads separately, ~500MB–2GB)
- Import an audio/video file and click Transcribe
See the full User Guide for detailed setup and usage instructions.
Platform Support
| Platform | Architecture | Installers |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | x86_64 | .deb, .rpm |
| Windows | x86_64 | .msi, .exe (NSIS) |
| macOS | ARM (Apple Silicon) | .dmg |
Architecture
The app is split into two independently versioned components:
- App (v0.2.x) — Tauri desktop shell with Svelte frontend. Small installer (~50MB).
- Sidecar (v1.x) — Python ML engine (faster-whisper, pyannote.audio). Downloaded on first launch. CPU (~500MB) or CUDA (~2GB) variants.
This separation means app UI updates don't require re-downloading the sidecar, and sidecar updates don't require reinstalling the app.
Tech Stack
| Component | Technology |
|---|---|
| Desktop shell | Tauri v2 (Rust + Svelte 5 / TypeScript) |
| Transcription | faster-whisper (CTranslate2) |
| Speaker ID | pyannote.audio 3.1 |
| Audio UI | wavesurfer.js |
| Transcript editor | TipTap (ProseMirror) |
| AI (local) | Ollama (any model) |
| AI (cloud) | OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenAI-compatible |
| Caption export | pysubs2 |
| Database | SQLite (rusqlite) |
Development
Prerequisites
- Node.js 20+
- Rust (stable)
- Python 3.11+ with uv or pip
- Linux:
libgtk-3-dev,libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev,libappindicator3-dev,librsvg2-dev
Getting Started
# Install frontend dependencies
npm install
# Install Python sidecar dependencies
cd python && pip install -e ".[dev]" && cd ..
# Run in dev mode (uses system Python for the sidecar)
npm run tauri:dev
Building
# Build the frozen Python sidecar (CPU-only)
cd python && python build_sidecar.py --cpu-only && cd ..
# Build with CUDA support
cd python && python build_sidecar.py --with-cuda && cd ..
# Build the Tauri app
npm run tauri build
CI/CD
Two Gitea Actions workflows in .gitea/workflows/:
release.yml — Triggers on push to main:
- Bumps app version (patch), creates git tag and Gitea release
- Builds lightweight app installers for all platforms (no sidecar bundled)
build-sidecar.yml — Triggers on changes to python/ or manual dispatch:
- Bumps sidecar version, creates
sidecar-v*tag and release - Builds CPU + CUDA variants for Linux/Windows, CPU for macOS
- Uploads as separate release assets
Required Secrets
| Secret | Purpose |
|---|---|
BUILD_TOKEN |
Gitea API token for creating releases and pushing tags |
Project Structure
src/ # Svelte 5 frontend
lib/components/ # UI components (waveform, transcript editor, settings, etc.)
lib/stores/ # Svelte stores (settings, transcript state)
routes/ # SvelteKit pages
src-tauri/ # Rust backend
src/sidecar/ # Sidecar process manager (download, extract, IPC)
src/commands/ # Tauri command handlers
nsis-hooks.nsh # Windows uninstall cleanup
python/ # Python sidecar
voice_to_notes/ # Python package (transcription, diarization, AI, export)
build_sidecar.py # PyInstaller build script
voice_to_notes.spec # PyInstaller spec
.gitea/workflows/ # CI/CD (release.yml, build-sidecar.yml)
docs/ # Documentation