Tagalong Complete Guide

Sidebar Navigation

Tagalong is a real macOS window — resizable, with a title bar, not a menu-bar popover. It uses a sidebar-based layout built on NavigationSplitView: a sidebar of your meeting library on the left, and a detail pane on the right that shows whatever you have selected. The menu bar icon is still there for quick actions, but it is no longer the whole app.

The sidebar is organized into three areas:

• Pinned items at the top: Home, Search, and Visual Notes. These are always visible and give you quick access to the most common views.
• Meeting list grouped by recency: Coming Up (your next calendar events, if Calendar access is granted — click one to auto-populate the meeting name), then Today, Yesterday, This Week, Last Week, This Month, Last Month, Older, and your custom Spaces. Every meeting you have recorded or imported appears here.
• Background processing badge — while a meeting is still being transcribed and summarized, its row shows a progress indicator; the app switches you to it automatically once it's ready (unless you're actively recording something else).

At the bottom of the sidebar is a persistent bar with four controls:

• Settings gear — opens the Settings view
• Record button — starts a new recording directly (hidden while a recording is already in progress)
• Processing indicator — a small spinner and label that appears whenever a meeting is being processed in the background
• Tier badge — shows your current tier (Free or Pro)

Selecting Home opens the Home view in the detail pane, where you can start a recording, import files, or see your next calendar event. Selecting any meeting in the list opens its detail page in the detail pane — a single scrolling column with Notes, Action Items, AI Summary, Full Transcript, and Visual Note as collapsible sections.

System Requirements

Tagalong is a native macOS application built with SwiftUI. It ships as a universal binary, so it runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) and Intel-based Macs.

Installation

Tagalong is distributed as a notarized DMG disk image. There is no installer to run — just drag and drop.

1. Download Tagalong — Visit tagalongai.com and click the Download button. Your browser will download Tagalong.dmg.
2. Open the DMG — Double-click the downloaded file. A Finder window will appear showing the Tagalong app icon and an arrow pointing to your Applications folder.
3. Drag to Applications — Drag Tagalong.app onto the Applications folder alias. This copies the app to your Mac.
4. Launch Tagalong — Open Tagalong from your Applications folder (or use Spotlight: press ⌘ + Space, type "Tagalong", and press Enter). The main window opens automatically, and you will also see a microphone icon appear in your menu bar.
5. Grant Microphone permission — On first launch, macOS will ask for Microphone access. Click Allow — this is required for recording to work. You can also grant this later in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.

Setup & API Keys

When you first open Tagalong, you will see the onboarding screen. Tagalong offers two ways to unlock Pro features — choose whichever fits your workflow best.

You do not have to choose right away. Tagalong works on the Free tier without any setup at all — you get 5 meetings per month with mic recording, speaker identification, a basic AI summary, and markdown export. No credit card required.

Setting up a Subscription

1. Open Settings — Click the gear icon in the sidebar bottom bar.
2. Select Subscription mode — Under Licensing Mode, choose "Subscription."
3. Complete checkout — Tagalong will open a Stripe checkout page in your browser. After payment, the app activates automatically.

Setting up a Private License

1. Get your API keys — You will need an OpenAI API key (for GPT summaries, chat, Enhance My Notes, and Whisper as a transcription fallback) and an AssemblyAI API key (for speaker identification). A Google Gemini API key is optional and only needed for visual notes generation.
2. Open Settings — Click the gear icon in the sidebar bottom bar.
3. Select Private License mode — Under Licensing Mode, choose "Private License."
4. Enter your keys — Paste each API key into the corresponding field. Keys are stored securely in macOS Keychain and are never sent to Tagalong servers.

Tier System & Feature Gating

Tagalong has two tiers: Free and Pro. The Free tier lets you try the core experience without a credit card. Pro unlocks everything.

To upgrade from Free to Pro, open Settings and choose either licensing mode:

• Subscription ($9.99/mo) — zero setup, API keys managed by Tagalong
• Private License ($199 one-time) — bring your own API keys for maximum privacy

Your usage counter is displayed in the sidebar and on the Home view. On the Free tier, you will see a message like "3 of 5 meetings remaining this month." The counter resets automatically at the start of each calendar month.

Your First Recording

Once Tagalong is installed and you have chosen a licensing mode (or are using the Free tier), you are ready to record your first meeting.

1. Open Tagalong — Launch it from the Dock or Applications folder; the main window opens with the sidebar and Home view visible.
2. Go to Home — Select Home in the sidebar if it is not already selected. The Home view shows your recording controls and, if Calendar access is granted, your next upcoming event.
3. Name your meeting — Type a name in the meeting name field (e.g., "Weekly Standup"). This is optional — Tagalong will use a timestamp if you leave it blank. If you have Calendar integration enabled, it may auto-fill the name of your current or upcoming meeting.
4. Click Start Recording — A brief pre-flight check confirms your microphone and, for Conference Mode, a calendar match and headphones recommendation. Tap Start and Tagalong begins listening immediately. You will see a pulsing red dot and live audio meters. Speak normally — words appear in the "Last Heard" preview almost instantly, transcribed entirely on-device.

When your meeting ends, click Stop Recording. Tagalong will process the audio — uploading it for speaker diarization, identifying who said what, and generating an AI summary. This typically takes 30 seconds to a couple of minutes depending on meeting length.

Your results are saved automatically to ~/Documents/Tagalong/{meeting-name}/ and the meeting appears in the sidebar. Click it to review the transcript, summary, visual notes, and notes.

Quick Start Checklist

Make sure you have everything in place before your first real meeting.

• macOS 15.0 (Sequoia) or later installed
• Tagalong.app dragged to Applications
• Microphone permission granted
• Licensing mode selected (Subscription, Private License, or Free tier)
• API keys entered if using Private License
• Test recording completed — try a 30-second recording to verify everything works

Starting a Recording

Open Tagalong. From the Home view in the sidebar, select your audio mode (Microphone or Conference) and input device. Enter a meeting name or let the calendar auto-populate it. Click Start Recording — a quick pre-flight check confirms everything is ready, then the recording view takes over the detail pane.

1. Open Tagalong — From the Dock, or press ⌘ + Space and type "Tagalong."
2. Select Home — If not already selected, click Home in the sidebar to see your recording controls.
3. Name your meeting — Type a meeting name or leave it blank (Tagalong will use a timestamp). If you have a Pro license and have granted calendar access, the name auto-fills from your next calendar event.
4. Choose your audio mode — Select Microphone (default) or Conference Mode PRO using the mode toggle.
5. Click Start Recording — A "Ready to record" pre-flight popover confirms your microphone, permission status, and any calendar match (plus a headphones recommendation in Conference Mode) before you tap the actual Start button. Tagalong then begins capturing audio immediately, and the menu bar icon turns into a red recording indicator.

Microphone Mode vs Conference Mode

Tagalong offers two audio capture modes depending on where your meeting audio is coming from.

Live Capture PRO

Conference Mode replaces the single waveform with a "Live Capture" card that shows both audio sources live, so you always know both sides of the call are actually being picked up — no more wondering if the meeting audio made it in until you stop and check.

• Two labeled, real-time channel meters: "You" (your microphone, with the device name shown) and "Meeting audio" (the detected app, e.g. "Zoom," when available)
• Each channel shows a live dB readout and a status pill — LIVE, WAITING, or QUIET
• An overall "Both sources healthy" verdict tells you at a glance that capture is working

Before you even hit Start, the pre-flight "Ready to record" popover checks your setup ahead of time: which microphone will be used, mic permission status, a calendar match if a meeting is starting now or soon, and — in Conference Mode — a headphones recommendation if your current output device risks bleeding into the mic.

During Recording

While recording, Tagalong shows a live interface with real-time feedback about the audio it is capturing. The recording view is laid out from top to bottom as follows:

1. Top bar — A pulsing red dot, "Recording" label, elapsed timer, a mic-selector dropdown, a mute button, a minimize (compact mode) toggle, and a red "Stop" button.
2. Audio meters — A real audio waveform in Microphone mode, or the two-channel Live Capture card in Conference Mode (see above).
3. "Last Heard" card — Shows your live transcript, updated near-instantly. Transcription happens on-device by default (Apple's on-device speech recognition), so words appear as you speak and nothing leaves your Mac during the meeting. Displays "Listening..." when waiting for speech, or "Silence detected" when no audio is present.
4. Meeting name — An editable text field. You can rename the meeting at any time during recording.
5. Notes editor — The full Notepad — the same block-based rich-text editor used on the meeting page — embedded directly in the recording view, so you can take real notes as the meeting happens. See The Notepad.
6. AI Chat panel — A collapsible "Ask AI" panel for asking questions during recording (Pro only).
7. Stop Recording — Saves the audio and starts processing.
8. Cancel — Discards the recording entirely and returns to the Home view.

Mute yourself when you need to cough, take another call, or speak without adding your voice to the recording. Click the mute button or press ⌘ + ⇧ + M. Tagalong keeps recording the meeting audio, and the transcript timeline stays continuous. Muting never starts the silence countdown or triggers auto-stop.

Compact Recording Mode

If you need to work in other apps while recording, click the minimize arrow in the recording top bar to shrink the entire Tagalong window down to a small 480×280 floating card.

• The floating card shows a pulsing red dot, the elapsed timer, and a stop button
• Your full recording continues uninterrupted in the background — no audio is lost
• Click the card (or the expand control on it) to restore the full window at any time
• Keeps recording status visible on screen while you present, take a video call in another app, or just want Tagalong out of the way

Stepping Away: Mute vs. Pause

Two ways to go quiet, for two different situations:

1. Mute yourself (recommended during meetings) — Click the mute button on the recording screen or press ⌘⇧M. Your microphone goes silent while the meeting keeps recording: the other side’s audio and your timeline stay intact, and muting never triggers the silence auto-stop. Perfect for a cough, a side conversation, or sensitive asides.
2. Pause the whole recording — Right-click the Tagalong menu bar icon and choose Pause Recording. All capture stops (your mic and meeting audio), and the menu bar icon switches to an amber pause symbol. Right-click → Resume Recording to continue — there will be a gap in the audio for the paused span, which the transcript handles naturally.

Recording Start Sound

Tagalong can play an audible notification tone shortly after recording begins — a courtesy alert so meeting participants know the call is being recorded.

1. Enable the setting — Open Settings and toggle Recording Start Sound under the General section.
2. Start a recording — Two seconds after recording begins, a brief notification tone plays through your speakers.
3. Automatic guard — If you cancel recording within those two seconds, no sound plays.

Taking Meeting Notes

The exact same Notepad you use after a meeting — full toolbar, formatting shortcuts, and all — is embedded directly in the recording view, so you write real notes in real time rather than a plain text box. Blocks you type auto-scroll into view as you add them.

The signature behavior here is ambient margin timestamps: every block you write during a recording silently remembers the moment you wrote it. You don't need to press anything to timestamp a note — just write. Later, hovering the left margin of that line reveals a timestamp chip; clicking it jumps the recording's audio playback to that exact moment. See The Notepad for the full formatting reference.

Notes are included in the AI summary prompt, so important context you capture is reflected in the final output — and they're what Enhance My Notes expands afterward using specifics from the transcript.

Live AI Chat PRO

Ask questions about your meeting while it is still happening. The "Ask AI" panel uses your accumulated live transcript as context and streams answers in real time.

1. Expand the panel — Tap the collapsible "Ask AI" bar at the bottom of the recording screen.
2. Ask a question — Type something like "What was the main concern raised?" or "Summarize the last 5 minutes."
3. Read the response — Answers stream in as they are generated. The chat does not interfere with or pause your recording.

Calendar Auto-fill PRO

Tagalong integrates with your macOS Calendar to save you a few keystrokes at the start of every meeting.

1. Grant permission — The first time you use this feature, Tagalong asks for Calendar access (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars).
2. See your next meeting — A "Coming Up" group appears at the top of the sidebar's meeting list, showing your next upcoming events. It refreshes every 30 seconds.
3. Click to auto-fill — Tap an event in "Coming Up" to populate the meeting name field instantly.

Connecting your Outlook / Microsoft 365 calendar

Since Version 3.3, Tagalong connects to Outlook directly — no macOS account setup needed:

1. Open Settings → Calendar — Scroll to the calendar accounts area and click Connect Microsoft 365.
2. Sign in — A Microsoft sign-in window opens. Use your Microsoft 365 work account or a personal Outlook.com account, and accept the calendar permission request.
3. Choose your calendars — Once connected, an Outlook calendars dropdown lets you pick which calendars feed your upcoming meetings. Events refresh every few minutes.

Prefer not to sign in through Tagalong? The macOS route still works: add your Microsoft account in System Settings → Internet Accounts (Microsoft Exchange), enable calendar syncing, and its events appear through Apple Calendar. Some organizations must approve Apple Internet Accounts too — see aka.ms/ConsentAppleApp.

Switching Microphones Mid-Recording

Need to swap from your AirPods to a USB mic? Tagalong handles microphone changes on the fly without losing any audio data.

Use the microphone selector dropdown on the recording screen to pick a different input device. Every option shows the device's actual name, and a checkmark marks the input currently in use. The list stays current if you change the system default or connect a new device. Tagalong disconnects from the current mic and reconnects to the new one seamlessly — no gap in your recording.

Stopping & Cancelling

When your meeting is over, you have two choices:

You can also minimize the recording to compact mode before stopping. The compact strip keeps the recording running while you browse other meetings. See Compact Recording Mode for details.

Smart Context Menu

Left- or right-click the Tagalong menu bar icon to open a quick-action menu that changes based on the current state of the app — without bringing the main window forward.

Meeting Auto-Detection PRO

Tagalong can detect when you launch a meeting app and prompt you to start recording — so you never forget to capture an important conversation.

Supported apps: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, FaceTime, and Slack.

1. Enable the feature — Open Settings and toggle Meeting Auto-Detection under the General section.
2. Launch a meeting app — When Tagalong detects one of the supported apps starting, it waits 10 seconds (to avoid false triggers from brief app launches) before sending a notification.
3. Respond to the prompt — The notification asks if you'd like to start recording. If calendar integration is enabled, it also suggests a meeting name based on your next calendar event.
4. Meeting end detection — When the meeting app quits, Tagalong sends another notification asking if you'd like to stop recording.

Processing Steps

When you stop a recording or import a file, Tagalong runs through a series of steps automatically. You will see each step displayed in sequence so you always know where things stand.

1. Importing — For file imports, Tagalong copies and prepares the file. For live recordings, this step is skipped.
2. Uploading audio — Your recorded WAV file is uploaded for processing.
3. Transcribing & identifying speakers — Tagalong's transcription pipeline converts the audio to a polished text transcript and figures out who said what, labeling each segment by speaker.
4. Generating summary — GPT reads the full transcript and produces a structured summary with a TL;DR, key decisions, and takeaways; action items are extracted separately.
5. Done — Results are saved to your output folder and the meeting appears in the sidebar.

Processing continues in the background. You can navigate to other meetings, start a new recording, or close the detail pane — your meeting will appear in the sidebar when ready.

Background Processing

After you stop a recording or import a file, you do not have to wait on a progress screen — processing (transcription, speaker identification, summary, and action items) runs independently while you use the rest of the app.

• Processing continues even if you navigate away from the meeting in the sidebar
• The meeting shows a progress indicator in the sidebar while processing is in progress
• When processing completes, Tagalong automatically navigates you to the finished meeting — unless you're actively recording something else
• You can start a new recording while a previous meeting is still processing
• If you quit and relaunch the app, processing resumes where it left off

The Results View

After processing, your meeting appears in the sidebar list and the detail pane shows the meeting page — a single scrolling column with collapsible cards in this order: Notes (always expanded by default — it's the first thing you see), Action Items, AI Summary, Full Transcript, and Visual Note. A header above them shows the meeting title, duration, word count, and speaker count. Each card can be expanded or collapsed independently.

Click any meeting in the sidebar to view its results. The collapsible layout lets you focus on what matters — Notes leads because it's what you actually wrote, with the AI Summary and Full Transcript available right below whenever you need them.

Full Transcript

The Full Transcript card is collapsed by default. When you expand it, you get an audio player bar, speaker pills with talk-time percentages, a colored talk-time timeline strip, a search bar, a speaker-focus filter, and the scrollable turn-by-turn transcript itself.

• Speaker pills use a 5-color rotation and show each speaker's share of talk time, with avatars
• A clickable talk-time timeline strip, colored by speaker — click anywhere on it to seek the audio
• Click any entry to seek the audio player to that moment; playback highlights the active word as it plays PRO
• Search with match-stepping (chevron up/down, "N of M") to jump between every occurrence of a keyword
• A speaker-focus filter dims everyone but the speaker you select — useful for reviewing just one person's contributions
• Inline transcript-entry editing to fix a misheard word or name PRO
• Copy or Regenerate the transcript from the card's toolbar

Speaker Editing

Diarization labels speakers generically as "Speaker A," "Speaker B," and so on. You can replace these with real names so the transcript, summary, and visual notes all reflect who actually said what.

1. Click the pencil icon — Next to any speaker name (e.g., "Speaker A"), click the edit icon.
2. Type the real name — Enter the person's actual name in the text field.
3. Save — The name change propagates immediately through the entire transcript, the AI summary, and the visual notes.

AI Summary

The AI Summary card leads with an at-a-glance header: a parsed TL;DR line and a Decisions bullet list, followed by clickable Topic chips that jump straight to that section of the full prose summary below. Older summaries or custom recipes that don't produce this structured format simply fall back to plain markdown rendering — nothing breaks.

If you want a different format, choose a summary recipe before regenerating. You can also refine the summary after it has been created using AI editing.

Summary Recipes PRO

Recipes let you control the format and focus of the AI summary. Select a recipe before clicking Generate Summary — the recipe's system prompt replaces the default one, so the AI tailors the output accordingly.

You can also create custom recipes with your own name and system prompt. Custom recipes are stored locally and appear alongside the six built-in options in the recipe picker.

AI Summary Editing PRO

After a summary has been generated, you can refine it using natural language instructions. The edit panel appears below the summary content.

1. Type an instruction — Describe what you want changed in plain English: "Make it shorter," "Add a risk section," "Remove the action items," or "Rewrite the intro for a technical audience."
2. Review the proposal — The AI generates a refined version of the summary. You see it as a proposed edit.
3. Accept or Reject — Click Accept to apply the change, or Reject to discard it and keep the original.
4. Undo if needed — Click Undo to revert to the previous version. Tagalong keeps a history stack so you can step back through multiple edits.

Visual Note PRO

The Visual Note card generates an AI visual summary of a meeting — a shareable, sketchnote-style image that captures the key points at a glance. Tagalong uses Google's image generation to create 4K images in a variety of styles. If you took meeting notes, they are included in the prompt for richer content. Once a meeting has one, a gold "Visual Note" chip appears in its header that jumps straight to this card.

Every visual note you generate also lands in the Visual Notes gallery, a searchable thumbnail grid pinned in the sidebar for browsing across all your meetings.

You can customize the appearance before generating:

Click Regenerate to get a fresh version with the same settings, or change settings and regenerate for a different look. The visual note is saved automatically to your meeting folder as {meeting-name}_infographic.jpg.

Once generated, you have several ways to use your visual note:

• Open — Opens the full-resolution image in Preview
• Share — Opens the macOS sharing sheet so you can AirDrop, email, message, or send the visual note to any app that supports sharing
• Copy to Clipboard — Copies the image to your clipboard for pasting into Slack, Keynote, Google Docs, or anywhere else

The Notepad

Notes lead every meeting page — it's the first card you see, always expanded, above the AI-generated summary. This isn't a plain text box: it's one continuous, block-based document, the same editor whether you're writing during a live recording or coming back to a meeting later.

A note document is made of typed blocks. Use the toolbar, or type Markdown-style triggers inline and Tagalong converts them as you type:

Body text also supports inline formatting — bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and highlight — plus hyperlinks, all applied from the toolbar or the keyboard shortcuts below.

A paragraph can also be flagged as an action item directly from the toolbar's flag button — it syncs straight into the Action Items card, no re-typing required.

Enhance My Notes PRO

One tap rewrites and expands your shorthand using specifics pulled from the transcript — turning quick, messy notes into something a colleague who sat in the meeting might have written. It also fixes formatting along the way: a line that should have been a list becomes one.

1. Write at least one real note — Enhance needs a transcript and at least one actual note block to work with.
2. Click "Enhance my notes" — Tagalong takes a snapshot of your original first, then rewrites the whole document (not just appends to it) using the transcript for missing detail.
3. Review the result — A header shows "N improvements from the transcript" plus an Original / Enhanced segmented toggle. Original is read-only, so you always know exactly what you wrote versus what the AI added.
4. Re-enhance or Revert — A sparkles button re-runs the enhancement if you want another pass; Revert restores your pre-enhance original exactly. Both controls lock while a re-enhance request is in flight to avoid conflicting edits.

AI Chat PRO

The Chat panel lets you ask any question about the meeting and get an AI-powered answer based on the full transcript. Think of it as a research assistant who was in the room and remembers everything.

Some examples of questions you might ask:

• "Who was the most skeptical about the timeline?"
• "What were the three options discussed for the vendor?"
• "Summarize what Sarah said about the budget."
• "Were there any unresolved disagreements?"

Responses stream in real time. Your chat history persists for the current session so you can ask follow-up questions that build on earlier answers.

Action Items PRO

Action items are extracted automatically as part of background processing — no button to press first. The Action Items card sits between Notes and AI Summary on the meeting page.

1. Review the list — Each item shows a round checkbox, its text, a priority badge (High, Medium, or Low), a due-date hint when one was mentioned, and an avatar-initial chip for the owner.
2. Check items off — Mark items done directly in the list as you complete them.
3. Re-extract — Click "Re-extract" if you've since edited the notes or summary and want the list regenerated.
4. Export — Use the footer's Reminders-list picker plus Add to Reminders to send items into any of your Apple Reminders lists, or the quieter Send to Todoist / Copy all (as a Markdown checklist) actions.

Exporting Your Results

Tagalong gives you several ways to share or archive your meeting results, depending on your workflow and tier.

Meetings in the Sidebar

Previously recorded meetings appear automatically in the sidebar, grouped by recency: Coming Up, Today, Yesterday, This Week, Last Week, This Month, Last Month, Older, and your Spaces. Click any meeting to view its transcript, summary, and visual notes in the detail pane.

• Meetings are sorted chronologically with the most recent at the top of each group
• Each entry shows the meeting name and recording date
• Click a meeting name in the recording view, on its meeting page, in the sidebar, or on Home to rename it in place. Click away to save the new name, or press Esc to cancel.
• Meetings currently processing show a progress indicator until results are ready, and open automatically when done
• You can also import sessions from older versions of Tagalong using the import button

Spaces

Spaces let you organize related meetings into named, icon-tagged groups — like folders for your meetings, alongside the automatic date buckets. Use them to keep projects, teams, or topics neatly organized.

• Create a new Space from the sidebar to group related meetings (e.g., "Q1 Planning," "Client Calls," "Product Standups") and give it an icon
• Assign a meeting to a Space during or after recording
• Spaces appear as their own section at the bottom of the sidebar's meeting list, making it easy to find what you need
• A meeting can belong to one Space at a time

Visual Notes Gallery

Visual Notes is a searchable thumbnail gallery pinned in the sidebar, giving you one place to browse visual summaries from every meeting.

• Scan every visual note in a clean thumbnail grid
• Search by keyword to narrow the gallery to the meeting you need
• Click any thumbnail to open a full-size preview
• Open the related meeting whenever you need the transcript, notes, or full context

Search PRO

Search is a pinned item in the sidebar. Click it to open the SearchView in the detail pane, where you can search across all meetings — transcripts, summaries, and notes.

1. Click Search — Select the Search item in the sidebar's pinned section.
2. Enter a keyword — Type any word or phrase in the search bar. Search is case-insensitive.
3. Browse results — Each result shows the meeting name, date, matched text with your keyword highlighted in context, a speaker badge, and a source type badge (transcript or notes). Results are sorted newest first, with a maximum of 100 results.
4. Jump to a meeting — Click any result to navigate to that meeting in the sidebar and open it in the detail pane.

File Import PRO

Already have recordings or transcripts from Zoom, Otter, or Gong? Import them into Tagalong to get speaker-labeled transcripts, AI summaries, and visual notes for meetings you recorded elsewhere.

1. Click Import File — On the Home view, click the "Import File" button.
2. Select your file — Choose an audio file or a transcript file from your Mac.
3. Wait for processing — Audio files are processed for speaker identification (this may take a minute or two). Transcript files are parsed immediately. Processing runs in the background.
4. Review results — Once processing is complete, the meeting appears in the sidebar. Click it to view the full results.

Open Previous Session

Previously recorded meetings appear automatically in the sidebar, grouped by date: Today, Yesterday, This Week, Last Week, This Month, Last Month, Older. Click any meeting to view its transcript, summary, and visual notes. You can also import sessions from older versions using the import button.

If you have session folders from an earlier version of Tagalong that do not appear in the sidebar, use the import function on the Home view to bring them in. Tagalong will scan the folder for markdown, audio, notes, and visual note files and load whatever it finds.

Audio Playback PRO

If a session includes an audio file (from a live recording or an imported audio file), a player bar appears in the results view so you can listen back.

• Scrubable progress bar — drag to any point in the recording
• Volume control slider
• Click any transcript entry to seek directly to that moment in the audio
• Time display showing current position and total duration

Output Folder Structure

Every session is saved to a dedicated folder inside ~/Documents/Tagalong/. Here is what each folder contains.

Licensing Modes

Tagalong offers two ways to unlock Pro features. Both grant the same full feature set — the difference is how API access is handled.

License Mode Selection

You choose your licensing mode in Settings. Both Subscription and Private License unlock the full Pro feature set (~27 features) — the difference is how API calls are handled and how you pay.

You can switch between modes at any time in Settings. Switching does not affect your existing meetings or recordings — only how future API calls are routed.

Subscription Auth Flow

Setting up a subscription takes less than two minutes. Here is how the end-to-end flow works.

1. Download and install Tagalong — Follow the installation steps above.
2. Open Settings — Click the gear icon in the sidebar bottom bar.
3. Choose Subscription — Under Licensing Mode, select "Subscription."
4. Click Subscribe — Tagalong opens a Stripe checkout page in your default browser. Your device ID is passed along automatically.
5. Complete payment — Enter your payment details on the Stripe page. Promotion codes are supported at checkout.
6. Return to Tagalong — After checkout, the app detects your subscription automatically and issues a JWT token for authentication.

Authentication details:

• JWT-based auth with automatic 24-hour token refresh (refreshes 60 seconds before expiry)
• Device-based licensing — one active subscription per device
• Token stored securely in macOS Keychain
• All API calls routed through api.tagalongai.com/v1/proxy

Private License Setup

If you choose Private License, you need to provide your own API keys. Here is what each key is used for.

1. Open Settings — Click the gear icon in the sidebar bottom bar.
2. Choose Private License — Under Licensing Mode, select "Private License."
3. Enter your OpenAI key — Get one at platform.openai.com/api-keys and paste it into the OpenAI field.
4. Enter your AssemblyAI key — Get one at assemblyai.com and paste it into the AssemblyAI field.
5. Enter your Gemini key (optional) — Get one at aistudio.google.com. Only needed if you want to generate visual notes.

Model Selection

Tagalong uses several AI models across its pipeline. Some are configurable, while others are fixed for reliability.

To change the summary model, open Settings and look for the Model section. The selected model is stored locally and applies to all future summaries.

Custom Vocabulary

Improve transcription accuracy for company names, product names, people's names, and industry jargon by adding them to your custom vocabulary list.

1. Open Settings — Click the gear icon.
2. Find Custom Vocabulary — Scroll to the Custom Vocabulary section.
3. Add your terms — Enter words separated by commas or newlines. For example: Tagalong, Kubernetes, Q3 launch, COGS

These terms are sent to Tagalong's transcription pipeline as key terms that bias speech recognition toward recognizing these words correctly. "Tagalong" is included by default.

Visual Notes Options

Customize how your AI-generated visual notes look. These settings are available in both the Settings view and the Visual Notes section in the results view.

When you select a color palette, the specific hex colors are included in the prompt sent to Google Gemini, so the generated image closely follows your chosen theme. Choose "None" to let the AI pick colors that fit the meeting content.

Integrations PRO

Share meeting results directly to Slack or Notion without leaving Tagalong.

Setting up Slack

1. Create a webhook — Go to api.slack.com/apps, create or select an app, enable Incoming Webhooks, and add a new webhook to the channel you want.
2. Copy the webhook URL — It looks like https://hooks.slack.com/services/T.../B.../...
3. Paste in Settings — Open Tagalong Settings, find the Slack section, and paste the URL.
4. Share — After generating a summary, click the Share to Slack button in the results view.

Setting up Notion

1. Create an integration — Go to notion.so/my-integrations and create a new internal integration. Copy the API key.
2. Share your database — Open the Notion database where you want meeting pages created, click Share, and invite your integration.
3. Get the database ID — Open the database in Notion. The database ID is the 32-character string in the URL between the workspace name and the question mark.
4. Paste in Settings — Enter both the Notion API key and Database ID in Tagalong Settings.
5. Export — After a meeting, click the Export to Notion button in the results view.

Setting up Todoist

1. Get your API token — Go to Todoist Settings → Integrations → Developer and copy your API token.
2. Paste in Settings — Open Tagalong Settings, find the Todoist section, and paste the token.
3. Export action items — After extracting action items from a meeting summary, select the items you want and click "Export to Todoist."

Launch at Login

Enable this toggle in Settings to have Tagalong start automatically when you log in to your Mac. The menu bar icon will appear right away, ready for you to start a recording at any time. This uses macOS SMAppService and requires macOS 13 or later.

Global Shortcuts

These shortcuts work anywhere on your Mac — even when Tagalong is not focused.

Notepad Shortcuts

These work anywhere in the Notepad — during a live recording or on the meeting page afterward. See The Notepad for typed Markdown-style triggers too.

In-App Shortcuts

Standard macOS text shortcuts apply in all text fields (meeting name, notes).