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Getting started

The first time you open Daisy, two short legal screens appear, then a five-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, tick I have read and agree…, and click I agree — continue.
  • Recording consent. Daisy reminds you that you are responsible for the recording laws and permissions that apply where you record. Acknowledge and continue.

Both screens are one-time and stored locally — they never appear again on this machine.

The five 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) and pick where to store your data — either 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. You can also leave Check for new versions automatically on (notify-only, never auto-installs).

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

    • I trust this machine (recommended for a personal device) — no passphrase. Daisy unlocks automatically. Simplest.
    • I want to encrypt my keys (shared or work computer) — set a passphrase (≥22 characters). Daisy asks for it on each launch. There is no recovery if you forget it.

    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 coaching. Paste your key inline, pick a model, and you're done. 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 helps you confirm Daisy is hearing you. Click Use this microphone and you're done.

Press Record whenever you're ready.

Good to know: transcription and speaker labels are always on-device — there's nothing to download or configure. You can change your name, storage folder, vault setup, and provider any time in Settings. The wizard can also be re-run for the mic picker alone — see Re-running the setup wizard.