Managing sessions
What is a session
A session represents one recorded meeting. Each session contains the audio recording, transcript (if generated), and any summaries you create. Sessions appear in the sidebar, sorted by date.
The sidebar
The sidebar lists all your sessions. Click a session to open it. The most recent session appears at the top.
Folders
Organize sessions into folders for easier navigation. Create a folder from the sidebar, then drag and drop sessions into it. Folders can be renamed or deleted. Deleting a folder moves its sessions back to the root level; it does not delete the sessions themselves.
Click a folder to expand or collapse it. Folder state is remembered between sessions. Each folder displays a count of the sessions it contains.
Tags
Give meetings free-form tags such as standup, client-acme, or 1on1. Add them below the session title with Add tag…. Tags appear in the session header and can be used in global search.
Notes
Each meeting has a Notes section for your own agenda, follow-ups, or anything else. You can write them while you record. Notes save automatically, are searchable alongside transcripts and summaries, and are used as context in summaries and chat. The API and MCP server can read them too.
Status indicators
Each session in the sidebar displays a status indicator showing its current state:
- Recording: audio capture is in progress.
- Recorded: audio has been saved, no transcript yet.
- Transcribing: the transcription model is processing the audio.
- Transcribed: the transcript is available.
- Summarizing: a summary is being generated.
- Summarized: at least one summary has been generated.
A failed session says why it failed, and tells "didn't start" apart from "transcription failed".
Searching sessions
Use the search field at the top of the sidebar to filter sessions by name. The list updates as you type.
Global search
Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) or Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on Mac) to open the global search palette. This searches across all transcripts and summaries using full-text search. Results are grouped by session with highlighted snippets so you can find that one thing someone said weeks ago. Notes and dictations are searched too; dictations appear in their own group after meetings. People and settings appear in the palette as well.
Search filters narrow the results:
tag:standupfinds meetings with that tag. Combine tags withandoror. Pair a tag with a phrase to search only inside those meetings.is:meetingoris:dictationlimits results to one kind.
Renaming a session
Right-click a session in the sidebar and select Rename, or open the session and click the session name to edit it. Press Enter to save the new name.
Audio playback
If an audio recording is available for a session, an audio player appears with transcript sync. Clicking a timestamp in the transcript jumps to that point in the audio, and playback highlights the corresponding transcript segment. Recordings play as a centred mono mix.
Session Mirror
MeetingDebrief automatically syncs your transcripts and summaries to disk as Markdown files. This makes it easy to back up your data or integrate with tools like Obsidian or Notion. Choose where these files live with the Markdown folder in Settings → Storage. Files are only rewritten when their content changes, so edits you make in a notes app survive restarts.
Insights dashboard
The Insights view shows how much time and money MeetingDebrief is saving you based on your meeting history. It displays total time saved, estimated monetary value (based on a configurable hourly rate), number of meetings debriefed, and a monthly activity chart. It also shows the time dictation has saved you, compared with typing.
Deleting a session
Right-click a session in the sidebar and select Delete. This removes the session, its audio recording, transcript, and all summaries. This action cannot be undone.