Whisper Models
Choose between speed and accuracy for local transcription.
QuickContract uses whisper-cpp, a high-performance C++ implementation of OpenAI's Whisper speech recognition model, to transcribe meeting audio locally on your Mac. The whisper-cpp binary runs as a sidecar process alongside QuickContract — it launches automatically when a recording starts and shuts down when the recording ends.
You need to download at least one Whisper model before you can record. QuickContract offers two model sizes, each with different tradeoffs between transcription speed and accuracy.
Model comparison
| Model | Size | Speed | Accuracy | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | ~140 MB | Fast — real-time on most Macs | Good | Day-to-day meetings, English conversations, quick recordings |
| Large | ~3 GB | Slower — may lag on older hardware | Highest | Multilingual calls, heavy accents, critical transcriptions where every word matters |
The base model processes 10-second audio chunks faster than real time on Apple Silicon Macs, which means transcription keeps pace with the conversation. The large model is significantly more accurate, especially for non-English languages and technical vocabulary, but requires more processing time and memory.
It's fast enough for real-time transcription and accurate for most English conversations. You can always download the large model later if you need higher accuracy for multilingual calls or specialized terminology.
Downloading a model
Open Settings
Click the gear icon in the sidebar or press Cmd + , to open Settings.
Go to Meeting Recording
Select the Meeting Recording section in the Settings panel.
Download your preferred model
Under Whisper Model, you'll see the available models with download buttons. Click Download next to the model you want. The download progress is shown inline. Once complete, the model is stored locally and ready to use.
Select the active model
If you have both models downloaded, select which one to use for future recordings. You can switch between them at any time — the change takes effect on the next recording.
How transcription works
When a recording starts, QuickContract launches the whisper-cpp sidecar binary with the selected model loaded into memory. Audio from both the system and microphone streams is fed to whisper-cpp in 10-second chunks. Each chunk is transcribed independently and appended to the running transcript with its speaker label ("me" or "them") and timestamp.
Because each chunk is small and self-contained, a transcription error in one segment doesn't affect subsequent ones. If a chunk contains silence or unintelligible audio, whisper-cpp simply returns an empty result and moves on.
Storage and management
Downloaded models are stored in QuickContract's application support directory. You can delete a model from the Settings panel to free up disk space. If you delete the active model, QuickContract will prompt you to download one before your next recording.