Start a transcription
- Open AFK's Transcribe section and wait for the speech model to be ready.
- Drag supported audio files into the drop zone, or choose Choose files… to select multiple files.
- AFK adds each file to the queue and works through the jobs one at a time.
- When a result is ready, copy it, show timestamped segments when timings exist, or open the Save menu.
The file flow reads audio through macOS's audio framework and converts it to 16 kHz mono samples for the speech engine.
Supported inputs
The current drop flow explicitly accepts these audio extensions:
| Extension | Input |
|---|---|
.m4a | MPEG-4 audio files such as many voice memos. |
.wav | Waveform audio. |
.mp3 | MP3 audio. |
.aiff / .aif | AIFF audio. |
.caf | Core Audio Format. |
.flac | FLAC audio. |
The app's file picker also uses macOS's UTType.audio filter. The separate CLI additionally accepts an .mp4 file when it contains an audio track; see the CLI input boundary.
How long recordings are handled
AFK's audio reader streams the source rather than allocating one giant buffer. Each chunk is approximately 120 seconds of source audio. After a chunk finishes, the queue advances and progress is reported by source time. Word timings from each chunk are shifted by that chunk's position so the result has one global timeline.
The queue is serial: one file runs at a time. Remove a pending, running, or finished job with the × control. Removing a running job cancels that job without cancelling the rest of the queue; cancellation can wait for the current chunk to finish.
Save formats
| Format | What is saved |
|---|---|
.txt | The transcript text as UTF-8 plain text. |
.srt | SubRip subtitle segments generated from word timings. The Save menu shows this when the result has timings. |
.json | A pretty-printed transcript object with text, duration, and word-level timing records. |
When you save, AFK writes the file you choose and adds a lightweight reference to History. History records the source filename, saved path and format, source duration, processing time, and word count. It does not become the permanent home for the transcript text.
Unsaved results and history
A non-empty result that you have not saved is cached locally for one hour after completion. The result card shows a countdown and says when it is saved. Save it before the window expires if you want a durable copy. Empty results are session-only.
AFK restores fresh cached results after a relaunch, and removes expired or unreadable cache files. The app's Delete all history action removes cached results and History references; files you already saved remain where you put them.
Supported languages
Parakeet v3 is described in the source as multilingual across 25 European languages:
- English
- Bulgarian
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- Estonian
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Maltese
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Russian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Ukrainian
The app can steer v3 toward a selected language's alphabet. The CLI can accept an ISO 639-1 language hint with --lang; see the CLI guide.
Offline boundary: after the model is downloaded and ready, this transcription work runs locally. The first setup, license activation, and Sparkle update checks are the network-dependent parts.