Turn a two-hour webinar into a text file you can search, quote and hand to Claude. It runs on your own Mac, so your recordings never leave it and you never pay by the minute.
What you’ll need.
Get these set up first. Everything below uses them.
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Check your Mac
This runs on Apple’s own chips. Intel Macs can’t run it.
- Click the Apple menu in the top left corner, then About This Mac.
- Look for a line called Chip. Apple M1, M2, M3, M4 or newer means you’re set.
- Check the macOS version on the same window. You want macOS Sonoma (14) or newer. If it’s older, update it first in System Settings, then General, then Software Update.
Install Homebrew
Homebrew is a free installer for Mac tools. Everything else in this guide comes through it.
- Open Terminal. Press Command and Space, type Terminal, press Return.
- Copy the line below, paste it into Terminal and press Return.
- It asks for your Mac password. Type it and press Return. Nothing shows on screen while you type, which is normal.
- It tells you what it’s about to install and waits. Press Return to carry on. This part can take a few minutes.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Then do the "Next steps" it shows you
When it finishes, Homebrew prints a short list headed Next steps. Run the lines it gives you. On most Macs they’re these three:
echo >> ~/.zprofile echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"' >> ~/.zprofile eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"
brew --version
Install the transcriber
Three free tools. ffmpeg reads the sound out of your video, pipx keeps things tidy, and MLX Whisper does the transcribing on your Mac’s chip.
brew install ffmpeg pipx pipx ensurepath
pipx install mlx-whisper
This one downloads a lot, so give it a few minutes. When it’s done, check it:
mlx_whisper -h
Tell this page about your video
Fill in the boxes and this page writes your command for you. Your answers stay in your browser.
mlx_whisper [WHERE YOUR VIDEO IS] \ --model mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo \ --language en \ --output-format txt \ --output-dir [THE FOLDER OF WHERE YOUR VIDEO IS]
Run it
One paste. Then leave it to work.
- Copy your command from step 4 and paste it into Terminal. Press Return.
- The first time, it downloads the model you picked. That only happens once.
- Then the words start scrolling past as it transcribes. Keep the lid open and leave it running.
- When Terminal shows the prompt again, it’s finished. Your transcript is in the same folder as the video, with the same name.
Put the transcript to work
A transcript on its own sits in a folder. Hand it to Claude and it becomes notes, emails and lessons.
Open claude.ai, start a new chat and attach the .txt file. Then ask for what you need.
Summarise this in 10 bullet points. Pull out every question someone asked, with my answer. List every step I walked through, in order. Find the three best quotes and give me the timestamps.
Take your downloads
Tick what you want. Each file is written from your answers in step 4.
Your tools, one more time.
If something goes wrong.
"command not found: brew"
The Next steps lines from step 2 didn’t run. Paste the three lines from step 2 again, then close Terminal and open a fresh window.
"command not found: mlx_whisper"
Terminal hasn’t picked up the new tool yet. Press Command and Q to close it fully, open it again and run your command. If it still says this, run pipx ensurepath, then close and reopen Terminal once more.
"No such file or directory"
The path in step 4 is wrong. Copy it again with Option, right-click, Copy as Pathname, and paste it straight into the box without editing it.
The same sentence repeats over and over
This happens on long recordings with silence or music. Add a line above the last line of your command: --condition-on-previous-text False \ and run it again.
Names come out spelled wrong
Add them to the names box in step 4 and run the new command. For a name that’s wrong all the way through, open the transcript in TextEdit and use Edit, Find, Find and Replace.