Deleting meeting recordings, and what goes with them

Deleting a meeting recording in Notey removes the whole meeting: the audio, the transcript, every note, the questions you asked about it, and its contribution to any voice Notey learned to recognise. With sync on, it is removed from your account and from every one of your Macs. There is no way today to delete only the audio and keep the transcript, so if you want the words, export them first.

This guide covers how to delete meeting recordings in Notey, exactly what goes with them, what does not (exports, disk backups, anything you sent elsewhere), and how to think about deleting on a schedule rather than one meeting at a time.

Delete a meeting recording in Notey

1. Decide whether you need the text. If you want to keep the transcript or the notes, export them now. Notes and the summary export as Markdown; the transcript on its own exports as plain text. Exporting meeting notes has the steps.
2. Stop the recording if one is running. A meeting that is still being recorded cannot be deleted; the button says "Stop the recording before deleting it."
3. Open the meeting and choose Delete meeting. You can also use the delete button on the meeting's row in the list. Both ask you to confirm first.
4. Read the confirmation. It says what comes off this Mac — "Its recording comes off this Mac, along with the transcript, the notes, and anything you asked Notey about it" — and, with sync on, that it will also be removed from your other Macs, naming the Mac that holds the recording.
5. Choose Delete. The confirmation ends with "This cannot be undone.", and it means it.

With sync on, your other Macs remove the meeting at their next sync, normally within a few minutes.

What goes with a deleted meeting

Voices are handled separately

If voice recognition is on, a voiceprint is stored per meeting when you name someone. Deleting the meeting removes that meeting's contribution. To remove a person's voice from every meeting at once, open People and use Forget this voice; with sync on, that forgets it on all your Macs. Names already written into past transcripts stay as ordinary text. Voice recognition and privacy covers why voiceprints deserve their own attention.

Deleting with sync on

Sync is one person's meetings on their own Macs, and a delete means the same thing on all of them. Deleting on your desktop removes the meeting from your laptop too, recording included, and the confirmation names the laptop before you commit. A delete also wins over an edit: if you edited the meeting on another Mac before the two synced, the meeting is still deleted and your edit is kept under Edits kept aside on the Sync screen, as text you can copy. Keeping your meeting notes on two Macs explains how sync settles changes.

If sync is off or not set up, the confirmation says nothing about other Macs, and nothing leaves the Mac.

Why you cannot delete only the audio

A common retention rule is to delete the audio soon and keep the transcript and notes longer. Notey does not support that split today: a meeting is deleted as a whole. It is a real gap for anyone applying that kind of schedule, and it is better to know it before you plan around it.

What you can do instead:

• Export, then delete. Export the notes as Markdown and the transcript as plain text into wherever you keep project records, then delete the meeting. The export carries the AI-generated and edited-by-you labels with it.
• Keep the meeting until the text is no longer needed. If the audio is the only thing you would delete early and nobody objects to it being kept a little longer, keeping the whole meeting until the notes' own deletion date is simpler.

Which of these fits depends on what you told the people in the meeting. If you said "the recording is deleted after a month", the first is the one that keeps that promise.

What deletion cannot reach

Deleting a meeting in any tool removes the copies that tool controls. Everything else is yours to find.

• Exports. A Markdown or text file you saved, pasted into a document, or emailed.
• Disk backups. Notey's data lives in your user Library, so a Time Machine backup of your Mac normally includes it. Deleting the meeting does not reach into old backups; they age out on their own. Backing up meeting recordings covers this.
• AI requests already made. When you asked for notes, the transcript text went to Notey's service and on to OpenAI as a processor. Notey does not keep that text after the response; the notes that came back are part of the meeting and are deleted with it. The privacy policy sets this out.
• Other people's copies. If someone else recorded the same call with their own tool, or you forwarded notes to a client, those copies are outside your reach.

If you are deleting because someone asked you to, this list is where the work is. The right to erasure and meeting recordings walks through finding every copy.

Clearing old recordings on a Mac

Recordings are the large part of what a notetaker keeps. If you are deleting to free space rather than to meet a retention rule, meeting recordings and disk space shows where the space goes and how much Notey is using. Sync does not copy recordings to your other Macs, so it does not use their disk space for audio.

For deleting on a schedule, the useful habit is a regular review rather than a one-off purge:

1. Set the periods first. How long audio, transcripts and notes are each kept. How long to keep meeting recordings has a starting schedule.
2. Review on a fixed day each month. Sort the meeting list by date and look at everything older than the shortest period.
3. Export what must outlive the recording, then delete the meeting.
4. Check the exceptions. A meeting connected to a dispute or a complaint may need to be kept; that decision belongs to whoever handles legal matters, not to the schedule.

How Notey handles deletion, in short

• The recording, transcript, notes and questions are deleted together, from the Mac and, with sync on, from every Mac and the account.
• The confirmation says what will go, names the Mac holding the recording when it is elsewhere, and says it cannot be undone.
• A meeting being recorded cannot be deleted until it stops.
• There is no deleting the audio alone; export first if you need the text.

Frequently asked questions

Can I delete a Notey recording but keep the transcript?

Not today. Deleting a meeting removes its recording, transcript and notes together. To keep the words, export them first — notes as Markdown, the transcript as plain text — and then delete the meeting.

Does deleting a meeting on one Mac delete it on my other Macs?

Yes, when sync is on. The meeting is removed from your account and from your other Macs at their next sync, including the recording on the Mac that made it. The confirmation says so and names that Mac before anything happens.

Can I undo deleting a meeting in Notey?

No. The confirmation says "This cannot be undone." If you might need the meeting later, export it before you delete it.

Does deleting a meeting remove a voiceprint?

It removes that meeting's contribution to any voice Notey learned from it. To remove a person's voice entirely, use Forget this voice on the People screen.

Does deleting a meeting in Notey delete my Time Machine backups of it?

No. Notey can only delete what it holds: the meeting on your Macs and, with sync, the encrypted copy in your account. Backups of your disk follow their own rules and expire on their own schedule.