Building a searchable archive of your meetings

It needs three things: transcripts, not just summaries, so the words are there to search; a way to narrow by time and by project; and a link from each line back to the moment it was said, so you can check what you found.

This guide covers how to set one up, how to search it well, how to organise it without much effort, and what to delete.

Why notes alone are not searchable enough

Most people's meeting archive is a folder of notes, one per meeting. Notes are good for what the note-taker thought mattered at the time. They are poor for what turns out to matter later: the offhand remark about a competitor, the number someone quoted, the objection that seemed minor in March.

Summaries have the same problem in a stronger form. A summary is a selection. If the detail you need was not selected, searching summaries will not find it, and you may conclude it was never said.

Transcripts keep everything, which is exactly what makes them searchable. The trade-off is that they are long and imperfect — speech recognition gets names, jargon and numbers wrong more often than ordinary words — so an archive of transcripts needs good ways to narrow and to check.

What a searchable archive needs

Full-text search across every meeting

One search box, across all meetings, matching the words in transcripts. Searching one meeting at a time does not scale past a few weeks.

Search by time

Much of what you remember about a meeting is when it happened: "the call with Northwind, late August". Being able to type a date or a period and see those meetings is often faster than guessing a word.

Grouping by project or client

Meetings about one engagement, product or research round belong together. Filing each meeting under a project as you go means you can search within it later and skip everything else.

A link from text to audio

Transcripts are imperfect. When you find the line you need, you want to hear it, both to confirm the wording and to catch the tone — whether "fine" meant agreement or resignation. An archive where each line plays its moment turns a search result into evidence.

Your own notes and decisions alongside

Decisions pulled out into a decision log, each pointing back to its meeting, give you a second, much shorter way in. Search the log first; fall back to transcripts when the log does not have it.

How to search well

Search in a meeting archive is word matching over imperfect text, so a few habits help:

• Search for the distinctive word, not the phrase. "Offline" finds more than "we decided to drop offline mode", because nobody said it that neatly.
• Expect names and numbers to be wrong. If "Northwind" finds nothing, try "north wind" or a word that was said near it. Numbers may appear as digits or words.
• Narrow before you read. Filter to a project or a date range first, then search. Fewer results means less skimming.
• Check what you find. Read a few lines either side, and play the moment if you can, before you quote it to anyone.
• Note the timestamp when you use it. If a search answers a question that will come up again, put the meeting and time in your decision log or notes so the next person does not have to search.

Organising without much effort

An archive that needs a librarian will not be kept up. These are the minimum habits:

1. Title meetings so you can recognise them. "Northwind — pricing review" beats "Call 14:00". Rename right after the meeting while you know what it was.
2. File each meeting under a project as soon as it ends. One click then saves a lot of filtering later.
3. Archive finished projects rather than deleting them, if you still need the record. They stay searchable but out of the way.
4. Put decisions and actions at the top of your notes, following the meeting notes template, so a skim of notes finds them before you need the transcript.

What to keep and what to delete

A searchable archive is also a large store of what other people said. That is useful, and it is a responsibility.

• Decide retention by kind of meeting, before the archive grows. Client meetings may need keeping for the life of the engagement; one-off calls may not.
• Delete audio sooner than text where the transcript and notes are enough. Audio is the largest part of the archive and the most personal.
• Honour requests. If someone asks what you hold about them, or asks for it to be deleted, a searchable archive is what makes that answerable.
• Check your organisation's policy and the data protection rules where you work, which may set limits on what you keep and for how long.

For interviews and research, the same principles apply more strictly — see user research interview notes.

Your archive in Notey

Notey is built around this kind of archive, and it lives on your Mac.

• Search every meeting by what was said or by time with ⌘K. Results show the matching snippet from the transcript.
• Play any line. Click a timestamp in a transcript to hear that moment in the recording.
• Projects. File a meeting under a project from its header. Archive a project and its meetings stay; filter the meeting list by project, or by which Mac recorded it.
• Transcripts made on the Mac. Recording, transcription and search need no account and no network. For English meetings, Notey reads the recording again on your Mac and keeps the words the recognisers agree on after the call, which helps search find what was said.
• Delete completely. Deleting a meeting removes its recording, transcript and notes. You cannot yet delete only the audio and keep the text, so export the transcript first if you want it. The status bar shows how much local data your meetings take.

If the archive is on one Mac, losing the Mac means losing it. Keeping your meeting notes on two Macs covers Notey's encrypted sync, which keeps transcripts and notes on every Mac you sign in on.

Checklist

1. Keep transcripts, not only summaries.
2. Title meetings clearly and file them under projects as they end.
3. Search distinctive words; narrow by project and date.
4. Play the moment before quoting it.
5. Point your decision log at meetings and timestamps.
6. Set retention by kind of meeting, and delete audio first.
7. Back the archive up, or accept that it lives and dies with one machine.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find something that was said in a past meeting?

Search the transcripts for a distinctive word you remember — a product name, a number, a customer — then narrow by date or project. If the transcript is linked to a recording, play the moment to confirm the wording.

Is a transcript or a summary better for search?

The transcript. A summary only contains what the summariser thought was important, so the detail you are looking for is often not in it. Search the transcript and use the summary to orient yourself.

How long should I keep meeting transcripts?

Decide in advance, by kind of meeting, and apply it. Many people keep notes and transcripts for as long as a project or client relationship lasts and delete audio sooner. Your organisation's policy and data protection law may set limits.

Why can't I find a word I know was said?

Transcription often gets names, jargon and numbers wrong, so search for a nearby ordinary word, try likely misspellings, or narrow by date and skim.