Skip to main content
Ad-hoc recording captures the conversation in front of you — a desk chat, a whiteboard session, a call on a platform Cogno does not detect. Press one key and Cogno Desktop records the room; press it again and the recording becomes a Meeting with a transcript, a summary, and tasks, exactly like a call the Notetaker recorded. Nothing needs to be on your calendar and no meeting URL is involved.

​
Prerequisites

  • The Cogno desktop app on an Apple Silicon Mac or 64-bit Windows computer.
  • Microphone access allowed for Cogno.
  • A workspace open in the app — that is where the recording is saved.
Ad-hoc recording does not use the Microsoft Teams or Slack Huddles switches in your account settings. Those decide whether Cogno records a call it detected on its own; here you asked for the recording by pressing the key.

​
Start and finish a recording

1

Press the recording key

The default is ⌘⌃R on macOS and CtrlAltR on Windows. It works while any app is in front — Cogno does not come forward.
2

Watch the badge

On macOS the recording badge appears at the top of the screen with a clock, the destination, and a waveform. The waveform is how you know sound is arriving; if nothing is heard for ten seconds it reads No sound is being picked up.
3

Press the key again to finish

The recording ends and is saved to the workspace shown on the badge. You can also choose Finish recording from the badge or the menu bar.

​
What gets recorded

Cogno mixes your microphone and whatever your computer is playing into one audio track. That is what makes it work for a call on a platform Cogno cannot detect: the other side comes through your speakers. There is no video.
Anything playing on your computer is recorded — music, a video, another call. Stop other audio before you start.

​
Control a recording while it runs

On macOS a badge floats over whatever you are working in, and the same controls are in the menu bar. On Windows they are in the Cogno menu, reached from the recording indicator. Your computer will not sleep while a recording runs. The display still dims and locks as usual — that does not stop the recording.

​
Where the recording goes

The destination is the workspace that was open when you pressed the key, not the one on screen when you finish. Change it from the badge at any time during the recording. A finished recording appears in Meetings with the title Ad-hoc recording until the summary is ready, at which point Cogno renames it after what was discussed.
Recordings are deleted after 7 days, or 3 days when only audio was recorded. Share one with a workspace or download it before then to keep it. Transcripts are kept either way.

​
Who said what

An in-person recording reaches Cogno as a single audio track, so the transcript arrives without speakers separated. Cogno reads the conversation and works out who was speaking — names people are called by, introductions, who answers what — then matches those names against your workspace members. A speaker the conversation does not identify stays anonymous rather than being guessed at. Nothing in the transcript wording is changed.
Attribution runs on recordings long enough to have a conversation in them. A few seconds of speech is transcribed but not split by speaker.

​
Change the recording key

1

Open Settings → Account

Find Desktop recording, then Ad-hoc recording key.
2

Click the key, then press the combination you want

The field reads Press keys… while it listens. Press Esc to cancel, or Reset to go back to the default.
The key is claimed from every app on the machine, so a combination another app already holds is refused — Cogno says so and keeps your current key. The choice is stored per computer.
On macOS, ⌃⌥ is VoiceOver’s modifier. Cogno accepts a key that uses it but warns you, because it takes over one of VoiceOver’s commands.

​
Reference

​
Troubleshooting

For anything not listed here, see Troubleshooting.