Skip to content
← Help

Getting started

The first time you open Daisy, two short legal screens appear, then a six-step setup wizard. The whole thing takes about a minute, and everything you set up stays on your own machine.

Before the wizard

  • Terms & Privacy. Read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (switch between them with the tabs), tick I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and click I agree — continue.
  • Before you start. A recording-consent screen with four items you each acknowledge: recording laws are your responsibility; you'll obtain the consent the law and your participants require; voiceprints and diarization are biometric data you'll only use on people you have permission to identify; and you're responsible for your recordings and anything you do with them. Check all four, then click I acknowledge — continue.

Both screens are one-time and stored locally on this machine — they only reappear if a document version changes. See the FAQ for how Daisy handles recording consent and privacy.

The six steps

  1. Welcome. A quick read about what Daisy does. Click Get started to move on.

  2. About you. Tell Daisy your name (used to address you as "you" in meeting summaries instead of by name) and pick where to store your data — the default profile folder or a custom location. A cloud-synced folder (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive) lets you share the same library across devices; see Your vault and profile folder for the trade-off. Leave Check for new versions automatically on if you want update notices (notify-only — it never auto-installs).

  3. Vault. Pick how Daisy secures your API keys and voiceprints:

    • Passphrase (recommended) — set a passphrase (minimum 22 characters). Daisy asks for it on each launch, so only you can unlock the vault. There is no recovery if you forget it.
    • I trust this machine — no passphrase. Daisy derives the key from this computer and unlocks automatically; anyone who can sign in to this computer can open the vault.

    More in Your vault and profile folder.

  4. AI provider. Optional. Pick one of Anthropic, OpenAI, Groq, LM Studio, or Ollama to power summaries, ask-your-meetings search, chapters, and analysis. Enter your key inline, then click Continue. Or click Skip — I'll use copy-paste to keep transcripts only and summarize through your own ChatGPT / Claude later. Step-by-step guides for generating a key are in Getting an API key for summaries.

  5. Microphone. Pick your input from the dropdown — a live level meter confirms Daisy is hearing you. Click Continue.

  6. Speed check. Daisy measures transcription speed on this machine (about a minute) to decide whether live captions run while you record — either way the full transcript arrives when you stop. Click Start using Daisy to finish.

Press Record whenever you're ready.