Getting Started

Learn how to use Echosy — private, on-device audio transcription for macOS.

System Requirements

Installation

1. 1Download the .dmg file from echosy.org.
2. 2Open the .dmg and drag Echosy to your Applications folder.
3. 3Launch Echosy. On first launch, macOS will ask you to confirm opening the app.

Granting Permissions

Echosy needs two macOS permissions to capture audio:

1. 1Screen Recording — required to capture system audio (e.g., Zoom, YouTube, Spotify). Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording → enable Echosy.
2. 2Microphone — required if you want to include your mic input. macOS will prompt automatically on first use.

First Transcription

1. 1Choose an ASR model in Settings → ASR Models (Qwen3 0.6B is a good default — fast and lightweight).
2. 2Wait for the model to download (progress shown in Settings).
3. 3Press ⌘ + Shift + R or click the Record button to start.
4. 4Speak or play audio — live transcript appears in real time.
5. 5Press the shortcut again to stop. Your transcript is saved automatically.

Optional: On-Device Summaries & Chat

On Apple Silicon, Echosy can generate summaries and chat with transcripts entirely on-device — no API key, no network, no rate limits. Download a model once in Settings → AI / LLM (Gemma 4 E4B is a good default, ~3 GB). After it's downloaded, auto-summary at the end of every recording is free and private.