Table of Contents

Settings

The settings screen

General

Setting What it does Default
Your name Labels what you say as "Name (You)" instead of "You". Up to 20 characters. Saved 0.7 s after you stop typing. If you leave it empty, "You" is used. The first name of your Windows account or, if it has none, your user name with a capital initial.
Application language Language of the interface and of the summaries: Spanish, English, Portuguese, German or Russian. Applies immediately. The Windows language if it is one of those five, otherwise English.
Meeting language The language being spoken, for your microphone and the participants: Detect automatically or one of the five languages. Follows the application language until you choose another one.
Translucent interface Applies the Windows 11 Mica effect to the window background. Not applied on the first-run screen. Off
Tip

Setting a fixed meeting language gives better results than automatic detection if you always speak the same language. Use Detect automatically if it changes from one meeting to the next. How detection works is explained in Processing a recording.

AI models

Two sections, Transcription and AI summary, show each model, its size on disk or that it is missing, and a button to download it: Download transcription model and Download summary model.

  • If a model is already in the folder, its integrity is checked instead of downloading it again.
  • The status refreshes on its own when files appear in or disappear from the models folder.
  • Downloads cannot be paused here. If one is interrupted, for example by closing the application, the next download continues where it left off.

Folders and saving

Folder Default
Models folder %LocalAppData%\LoopbackTranscriber\models
Transcripts folder %LocalAppData%\LoopbackTranscriber\transcripts

Open shows it in Explorer and Change picks another one.

Important

Changing a folder does not move its contents. If you change the models folder, move the files yourself or download them again. If you change the transcripts folder, the history will only show what is in the new one. On uninstall, folders you changed are not deleted.

About

A link to the author's GitHub profile, the legal notice (consent to record, local processing, and that summaries can contain errors) and Third-party software licenses, which opens THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.

The settings file

All settings are stored in %LocalAppData%\LoopbackTranscriber\settings.json. The application writes it by itself and you do not need to edit it. It is described here for troubleshooting, and because three advanced settings only exist in this file.

Key Type Meaning
ModelSize string Whisper model. Defaults to turbo, the only one with a pinned SHA256 checksum. Any other value (tiny, base, small, medium, large) only works if ggml-<value>.bin is already in models\whisper, and it is not verified. If it is not there, an error is raised. The first run and the startup verification always use turbo, and any change saved from Settings resets this value to turbo.
ModelsFolder string Models folder.
TranscriptsFolder string Transcripts folder.
MeetingLanguage string "" follows the application language, auto detects the language, and es, en, pt, de or ru fix one.
UiLanguage string es, en, pt, de or ru.
TranslucentUi boolean Translucent interface.
UserName string Your name in transcripts. In the labels, colons are replaced with spaces.
UserNameInitialized boolean The Windows name has already been suggested. It is not suggested again even if you clear the name.
TrayHintShown boolean The "still running in the tray" notification has already been shown.
FirstRunSetupCompleted boolean The initial model download has been completed.
CustomApps list Added applications: Id (custom:<lowercase process>), DisplayName and ProcessName.
LiveTranslationLanguage string Target language of live translation.
LiveWindowOpacity number Opacity of the floating window, from 0.3 to 1.
LiveShowOriginal boolean Show the original below the translation.
LiveShowMetrics boolean Show the technical data strip.
LiveTextSize number Text size of the floating window, from 14 to 32.
LiveAudioContext integer Advanced. Whisper audio context size for live transcription. 0 uses the model's own. Smaller values reduce latency at the cost of accuracy.
LiveFlashAttention boolean Advanced. Turns on flash attention for live Whisper. If the model does not load with it, it is retried without it.

If you edit the file by hand, do it with the application closed. The application only reads the file at startup and, on every settings change, rewrites all of it from what it holds in memory, so your changes would be lost.

What happens if the file is damaged

  • If settings.json is not valid JSON, it is moved aside as settings.json.corrupt-<date>, the defaults are used and you are told: "The settings could not be read and have been reset to their defaults."
  • If it cannot be written (full disk, no permissions, antivirus), it is attempted three times. The changes are kept in memory, retried on the next change and on exit, and you are told once.

Writing is atomic: a settings.json.tmp is written and then replaces the original. A power cut never leaves a half-written file.