Getting Started with SpeakQuick: Your First Transcription

#Install and launch

Download SpeakQuick from the website and drag it into your Applications folder. The app runs on macOS 13.0 or later, with native support for Apple Silicon.

On first launch, SpeakQuick downloads the Whisper v3 model. This takes a few minutes depending on your connection speed. The model is stored locally and never needs to be downloaded again.

#Your first transcription

Transcribing audio with SpeakQuick is straightforward:

Drag and drop an audio or video file onto the SpeakQuick window
Select the language of the recording (or leave it on auto-detect)
Click Transcribe and wait for the result

SpeakQuick processes everything on your Mac. No audio data is uploaded to any server.

#Supported formats

SpeakQuick handles all common audio and video formats:

Audio: MP3, M4A, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG
Video: MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV

The app extracts the audio track from video files automatically.

#Export options

Once transcription is complete, you can export in several formats:

Format	Use case
Plain text (.txt)	Simple copy-paste workflows
SRT (.srt)	Video subtitles
VTT (.vtt)	Web video captions
Markdown (.md)	Documentation and notes

Click the export button and choose your preferred format. Timestamps are included in SRT and VTT exports.

#Speaker detection

SpeakQuick can identify different speakers in a recording. Enable speaker detection before transcribing to get labeled output like:

Speaker 1: Welcome to today's meeting.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the quarterly results.

This works well for interviews, meetings, and podcasts with multiple participants.

#Performance tips

Apple Silicon Macs transcribe significantly faster than Intel models
Close resource-heavy apps during long transcriptions for best speed
Use the large model for difficult audio (heavy accents, background noise)
Batch processing lets you queue multiple files at once

#What comes next

Explore the app settings to customize output formatting, default export paths, and keyboard shortcuts. SpeakQuick is designed to stay out of your way and deliver accurate transcripts with minimal configuration.