A recording is missing audio
If a transcript is empty, or has the other side of a call but not your own voice, it is almost always an operating system permission rather than a problem with the recording itself.
The confusing part is that a partial failure does not look like a failure. On desktop, meeting mode records your microphone and your computer’s audio as two separate streams. If the microphone is blocked but system audio is not, recording carries on and produces a transcript with your own voice missing.
Windows
Windows has two microphone switches and both must be on. The second one is the one people miss.
- Open Settings, then Privacy & security, then Microphone
- Turn on Microphone access
- Scroll down and turn on Let desktop apps access your microphone
With the first on and the second off, Notate cannot open the microphone, but your computer’s audio still records. That is the case that produces a one-sided transcript with no error.
System audio needs no permission on Windows.
macOS
Notate asks for microphone access the first time you record. If you dismissed or denied that prompt, no later prompt appears and you have to grant it yourself:
- Open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Microphone
- Turn on Notate
- Restart Notate
Capturing your computer’s audio needs macOS 14.2 or later. On earlier versions the microphone still records, so calls come through one-sided.
Mobile
Notate asks for microphone access the first time you record. If you denied it, grant it in your phone’s settings under Notate, then start a new recording.
Mobile records from the microphone only, so a call recorded on a phone captures your side and whatever the phone’s speaker is loud enough to pick up.
Checking before an important call
Record ten seconds, stop, and read the transcript. It is the quickest way to confirm both sides are being captured.