Autorec 0.12: record calls in any app

Autorec 0.12 is out. Until now it knew three apps: Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. This release adds four more and, more importantly, a way to teach it any other one yourself.

Detected out of the box

Proton Meet and Jitsi Meet in the browser are recognised the same way Google Meet is, from the browser tab. There is nothing to set up.

Signal, Element and the Proton Meet desktop app needed a different approach. Their window title never changes. Signal’s window says “Signal” whether you are chatting or in a call, so a title watcher would have recorded it from morning to evening. Autorec now watches a second signal: whether the app has the microphone open. The recording starts when the app grabs the mic and stops when it lets go.

If you are upgrading, the new watchers show up on the next launch. You don’t have to press Restore Defaults.

Add an app

The bigger change is in Settings → Watchers. Add an app lists the apps running on your machine, copies the real process name (you don’t have to know what Telegram calls its process), and asks one question: when should it record?

• when the window title looks like a meeting
• when the app is using the microphone
• whenever the app is running at all

Telegram, Discord, Webex or a Jitsi you host yourself take a few clicks each. The microphone option is the right pick for most chat apps, since they stay open all day. If the app isn’t running right now, choose its file instead and the watcher waits with a “not running now” badge until it first sees the app.

Two caveats

A call you put on hold may release the microphone. If it does, Autorec ends the recording after its usual grace period, and the next call becomes a new file. And on macOS, the microphone signal needs 14.2 or newer. Older systems keep the title watchers and log a note.

Windows fix

Browser calls were never detected on Windows. Meet and Teams in Chrome or Edge slipped through because the process patterns expected chrome and Windows reports chrome.exe. That’s fixed, and it’s probably the most useful line in this release for Windows users.

The update is in the app, or on the downloads page.