In short
With sync on and your recovery key, transcripts and notes come back on another Mac. Recordings do not: Notey never uploads them, not even encrypted, so they were only on the lost Mac, unless a disk backup such as Time Machine has them.
When you need to recover meeting recordings from a lost or stolen Mac, what comes back depends on what was set up before. With Notey's sync on and your recovery key in hand, every meeting's transcript and notes come back on another Mac. The recordings do not: Notey never uploads a recording, not even encrypted, so they were only on the lost Mac. A disk backup such as Time Machine is the place to look for them.
This guide goes through it in order: what to do first about the lost Mac itself, getting the text back through sync, looking for the recordings in a disk backup, and what to do when sync was not on.
First, the lost Mac itself
Before recovering anything, deal with the device. Meeting data sits on the Mac's disk like your other files, and how well it is protected there depends on the Mac's own settings: FileVault disk encryption and your login password.
- Lock or erase it with Find My, if it was set up, from another Apple device or iCloud.com.
- Report a theft to the police and, for a work Mac, to your employer. If the Mac held meetings with clients or other people, your organisation may have to assess whether that is a data breach; that is its decision and its process, not something to settle alone.
- Change your passwords, including the account you sign in to Notey with.
The steps below assume sync was set up on the lost Mac and you have the recovery key. They work on a replacement Mac or on a Mac you already own.
Recover meeting recordings from a lost Mac on another one
- Install Notey on the Mac. It needs Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later.
- Sign in with the same account. Use the same Google account or email address the lost Mac used. Sync belongs to one account, and a different account will not see the meetings.
- Enter the recovery key. Open Sync from the Account screen, choose I have a recovery key from another Mac, and type the key. Notey checks it against what is already synced; it tells you if the key has a typo or is a different key.
- Wait for the meetings to arrive. They appear in the meeting list with their transcripts, notes, speaker names, projects and the questions you asked. The list can be filtered by which Mac recorded each meeting.
- Open a meeting recorded on the lost Mac. Its transcript and notes are there. Where the player would be, it says the meeting was recorded on the lost Mac and the recording stays there. Every transcript line keeps its timestamp.
For the recordings themselves, see if sync was not on: the same disk backup that would bring back an unsynced Mac is the only place a recording can come back from.
What comes back, and from where
| What you had on the lost Mac | Comes back through | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Transcripts, including improved ones | Sync | Sync was on and you have the recovery key |
| Notes, names, speakers, projects, questions | Sync | As above |
| Recognised voices | Sync, sealed | As above; used only with voice recognition on |
| Recordings | A Time Machine or other disk backup | Never uploaded; only a disk backup has them |
| Anything not yet synced | Nothing in Notey | A disk backup, if it ran after the change |
| Everything on the disk | A Time Machine or other disk backup | The backup exists and you can open it |
Why recordings are separate
Sync carries text: transcripts, notes, names. The recording never syncs, and Notey has no other way of uploading it, encrypted or not. That keeps audio on the Mac that made it, which is what most people recording meetings have told the others.
An earlier version of Notey offered an optional encrypted copy of recordings. It has been removed. If you had switched it on, Notey deletes those copies from its storage automatically the next time it syncs, and the Sync screen says so if that has not finished yet. They cannot be brought back to a Mac.
The last few minutes before the loss
Sync runs when Notey starts, every few minutes, and shortly after a change. A meeting is sent after its recording stops, never during it. So a meeting that was being recorded at the moment the Mac was lost, or edits made in the last minutes before it went offline, may not have reached your account. If the Mac was offline for a while beforehand, its most recent meetings will not have either.
If sync was not on
Without sync, each meeting existed only on the lost Mac's disk. Look in these places, in this order:
- A disk backup. Time Machine normally backs up your user Library, which is where Notey keeps its data. Restoring the backup to a new Mac with Migration Assistant, or restoring the folder, brings back meetings as they were at the last backup, recordings included. Backing up meeting recordings explains what to check.
- Exports. Any notes or transcripts you exported to files, documents or email are copies in their own right.
- What you sent to others. Follow-up emails or minutes you circulated are a record of what was agreed, if not of what was said.
The AI requests you made do not help here: Notey does not keep transcript text after it returns your notes.
If you lost the recovery key too
Then the synced copy cannot be opened. That is the trade-off of a copy that only your Macs can read. Another Mac that was syncing still has everything that reached it; a disk backup still has what was on the lost Mac. Lost your recovery key? covers what to do next.
Preparing for next time
Losing a Mac is the moment a retention plan and a backup plan get tested. Two things decide what you get back:
- Sync on, with the key stored safely. Text comes back on any Mac. Sync between your Macs is part of the paid plans; see keeping your meeting notes on two Macs.
- A disk backup, encrypted, for the recordings and everything else on the Mac. Think about whether you should keep the audio at all: if you told people the recording stays on your laptop and is deleted after a month, a backup needs to follow the same rule.
Whatever you keep, keep it only as long as you need it. How long to keep meeting recordings sets out a schedule; a recording you already deleted is one you never have to recover or explain.
Frequently asked questions
Are my meeting recordings in the cloud if I used Notey sync?
No. Sync carries transcripts, notes and names, never recordings, and Notey does not upload recordings in any other way, not even encrypted. They stay on the Mac that made them. If an earlier version of Notey kept an encrypted copy of your recordings, Notey deletes it from its storage automatically.
Can I get my Notey meetings back on a new Mac?
Yes, if sync was on and you have the recovery key. Sign in with the same account, choose "I have a recovery key from another Mac", enter it, and the meetings arrive with their transcripts and notes.
Why do the recordings not come back?
Because they never left the lost Mac. Audio stays on the Mac that recorded it, which is what most people recording meetings have told the others. A disk backup of that Mac is the place to look.
My Mac was stolen. Can someone read my meetings on it?
That depends on the Mac's own protection, such as FileVault and your login password; Notey's data sits on the Mac's disk like your other files. Report the theft, use Find My to lock or erase the Mac, and change your account passwords.
What if I lost the recovery key and the Mac?
Then the synced copy cannot be opened, by you or by Notey. A disk backup of the lost Mac, another Mac that was syncing, and exports are what remain.