Soniqosoniqo
Stenograf help

Get started

Install Stenograf, start the free trial, and make your first recording. It takes a few minutes, most of them spent downloading the speech models once.

1. Install

Download Stenograf from console.soniqo.audio/download. On a Mac, open the disk image and drag Stenograf to Applications. On Windows, run the installer.

You need a Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 15 or later, or Windows 10 or 11 (x64). On Windows, Stenograf uses an NVIDIA graphics card when it has one; without one it runs in a lighter mode where speaker names arrive after a short delay.

2. Sign in and start the trial

Open Settings and choose Sign in & start free trial. Signing in does not start the trial: it starts when you press Start free trial, and it does not renew by itself. After the trial, Stenograf is $12 a month.

3. Allow audio on a Mac

Stenograf records two things: what your computer plays, and your microphone. macOS asks for both the first time you record — Microphone, and System Audio Recording for the sound of your calls. If a call records only silence, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording and turn Stenograf on.

4. Record

The speech models download once, after your trial starts; Listen becomes available when they are ready. On a Mac, if Hugging Face is slow or blocked where you are, choose China mirror (hf-mirror.com) under Settings → Account → Model downloads first. Press Listen and start your call, or just start talking. Captions appear as people speak and are replaced by the final text a few seconds later. Your own microphone is always labelled Me.

Stenograf's Live view, ready to transcribe, with the Listen button in the top right.

Press Stop when you are done. The recording is saved in History, where a summary appears once the local language model is set up (see Discover).

Tell everyone and get permission before recording. Stenograf reminds you, but a reminder is not the other people’s consent.

5. Optional next steps

  • Connect a calendar in Settings → Calendars — Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar or, on a Mac, the Calendar app — for meeting reminders with one-click Join & Listen. Listen never waits for it, so a calendar kept elsewhere costs you nothing. See Calendars.
  • Open at login is on by default, so Stenograf is already running when a meeting starts.