Importing recordings and transcripts

Not every meeting starts with Oris. A Voice Memo, a Zoom export, a transcript a colleague pasted into Slack: each of those can go through the same pipeline a live recording does, and land as the same kind of note. Which import you want depends on what you have — raw audio, or text somebody has already transcribed.

From the Oris app

The app’s left-hand rail has an import target in the space between the last section and the record button, with the words Drag audio file or transcript to import under a tray icon. Drag one or more files from Finder onto it, or click it to pick them in the usual file dialog, which offers the same file types. The moment a file is dragged anywhere over the window the target outlines itself, so it is easy to find; it fills in when the file is over it, and that is where you let go. A file dropped anywhere else in the window is not imported.

It takes both kinds of import described below: audio (.m4a, .mp3, .wav, .aac, .m4b, .caf, .aiff, .flac) and transcripts (.txt, .md, .vtt, .srt, and Oris’s own .json). A file of any other type gets one line in place of the caption, Oris can’t import this file., and is skipped; the other files in the same drop still import.

Each file becomes its own import, and each one gets its own row at the top of Recordings → Recent recordings and of See all recordings… straight away, with the import badge and the file’s name. Imports run one at a time in the order you dropped them, because each one needs the same on-device models a meeting does. A row that is waiting its turn reads Queued; once its turn comes it reads Transcribing… (an audio file, with a percentage on one of two minutes or more) and then Summarizing…, and when the note is ready the row becomes the finished import in the same place. One that fails becomes a failed row with Open log. The Recordings item in the rail shows its usual icon for imports too: the pulsing dot while one is waiting or running, then a check, or a warning triangle if one failed, until you open Recordings. Imports keep running if you close the window.

Quitting Oris for real (Quit Oris in the menu bar, Quit on the Dock icon, or logging out) while files are still importing asks first, the way it does for a live recording, and says how many files are left. Cancel keeps Oris running and the imports going. Quit anyway stops them, and each unfinished file becomes a failed row in Recordings with Open log; drop it again to import it. Closing the window or pressing ⌘Q only hides Oris, so neither one asks and the imports carry on.

The note lands where your meetings land, the same way the plugin’s and the command line’s imports do: in an inbox folder in your Obsidian vault or Markdown folder, or in your Apple Notes folder. Dropping a file on the Dock icon or the menu bar icon does not import it.

An audio file

Sometimes the recording already exists — a Voice Memo you dictated on your phone, a Zoom or Teams recording someone shared, an .mp3/.wav/.m4a from another tool. Audio file import runs that file through the exact same transcribe → format → summarize → land-in-your-vault pipeline a live Oris recording uses, without you having to re-record it live. It’s the audio sibling of external transcript import: that one takes an already-transcribed file, this one takes raw audio and transcribes it first with the same on-device WhisperKit model.

Supported formats. The picker lists the common ones — .m4a, .mp3, .wav, .aac, .m4b, .caf, .aiff, and .flac. That list is a convenience filter rather than a hard limit, because Oris decodes audio the same way the rest of macOS does. In practice, if QuickTime Player opens the file, Oris can transcribe it. Pick “All files” in the dialog to try one that isn’t listed.

The Obsidian plugin’s Oris: Import audio file… command opens a modal: choose an audio file, optionally set a title, and pick where the note lands — inbox/, a new note at a custom path, or appended to the end of an existing note. The optional “copy the original audio into <vault>/_archive/” toggle preserves the source file so it survives even if you later delete the produced note. Import runs in the background: clicking Import closes the dialog right away and the transcription continues while you keep working. When the note lands you get a notice you can click to open it, plus a macOS banner if you have switched away from Obsidian. The transcript is summarized by whichever provider you’ve set up under Settings → Providers, which is on-device by default (see Local (mlx)), and only one import runs at a time.

One thing to know about speaker labels. A live Oris recording captures your microphone and the system audio on two separate tracks, which is what lets it split the transcript into “me” vs. “others” (see me/others speaker labels). An imported audio file is almost always a single mixed track — everyone’s voice is already blended together — so the transcript isn’t speaker-split. The imported note carries a short callout saying so, so it’s never a surprise. (A rare export that happens to carry two separate audio tracks, like some Zoom recordings, does get the split automatically.)

A transcript someone else made

If someone else recorded the meeting — Zoom’s auto-transcript, Teams, Otter, a copy-pasted plain-text transcript, a VTT/SRT subtitle file — Oris runs it through the same format → summarize → land-in-your-vault flow that a live recording would use. Format is auto-detected; override it (vtt, srt, otter, plain, json) if the sniffer misfires (rare, but possible with copy-pasted text that happens to look JSON-ish).

The Obsidian plugin’s Oris: Import external transcript… command opens a modal: paste a transcript or pick a file, choose a format, and pick where it lands: Inbox, New note (custom path), or an existing note you choose. That last option, Replace marker in existing note, does what it says: if the note you pick still carries the <!-- TRANSCRIPT_PENDING_… --> marker a recording left behind, the import lands right there, in the spot a live recording’s own transcript would have taken. A note with no marker in it gets the import appended at the end instead, which is also what happens if the only marker in the note belongs to a recording that is still running — Oris leaves that one alone rather than taking the place your meeting is about to land in. The optional “copy original into <vault>/_archive/” toggle preserves the source file with cross-link frontmatter so it survives even if you later delete the produced note. Import runs in the background: clicking Import closes the dialog right away and the work continues while you keep working or start another recording. A status-bar pill (⬆ importing…) shows it running, and when the note lands you get a notice you can click to open it, plus a macOS banner if you have switched away from Obsidian. The transcript is summarized by whichever provider you’ve set up under Settings → Providers, which is on-device by default (see Local (mlx)); on that default, a long transcript that needs a bigger model downloads it once. Only one import runs at a time.

When the summary doesn’t come back

Summarizing is best-effort, for an import exactly as it is for a live recording: if your provider is unreachable, out of quota, or rejecting your key, the transcript still lands in full and only the summary is missing. You are told rather than left to notice. Where the summary would have been, the note carries a short ⚠️ Summarization failed block naming the provider, the error class, and the underlying message, and the completion notice says “summary failed” instead of “transcript only” — so a note that is missing its summary never looks finished. Fix the cause (usually an API key, the network, or a model that is still downloading), then import the same file again to get a summarized note; the original import is left alone, so nothing is lost while you sort it out.

The one-click Retry in the Oris app’s Recordings list, and the plugin’s Oris: Retry failed summaries command, cover live recordings rather than imports — both re-summarize from the recording’s own saved transcript, which an import does not keep. The import still shows up in that list with a ⚠️ rather than a tick, so a failed summary is visible there too, and the details are in the note itself.