MerlinMeeting

A meeting notes recorder for Citrix and VDI

MerlinMeeting sits in the notification area. Press Ctrl+Alt+P when a meeting starts and again when it ends. In between it records what your PC plays (the other people) and your microphone (you) on two time-aligned tracks. It works while you wear headphones, because it captures the meeting audio before it reaches them.

After the meeting it transcribes the recording on your PC with Whisper, works out who said what by voice, and has Claude write the notes. You get a Word document with a summary, key points, what was shown on screen, decisions, an action-items table grouped by person, open questions and the full transcript. The audio is deleted once the transcript is safely saved.

It was built for meetings that run inside a Citrix or other virtual desktop where you can't install anything. Their audio plays through Citrix Workspace on your own PC, and that's where MerlinMeeting listens. It works the same way for Teams, Zoom and Webex running on the PC itself.

Laws and company policies on recording meetings vary. Check yours before you record, and tell people they're being recorded.

Is it for you?

It's a good fit if you:

• spend a lot of your week in meetings and want reliable notes and action items without taking them yourself;
• join meetings from inside a Citrix or other VDI session where no recording tool can be installed;
• want the recording and transcription to stay on your PC, with only the transcript text sent to write the summary;
• have the same meetings every week and want them filed together, with the regulars recognized by voice.

It's probably not for you if you don't want any meeting content sent to an AI service, need a bot that joins the call or live captions, or use a Mac or Linux PC.

Features

Recording

• System audio and microphone recorded side by side on one clock, so the transcript knows who spoke when.
• Listen to the default output device, a specific device, or only meeting apps, which leaves out notification sounds and music.
• A small indicator with a timer and level meters, pause and stop.
• Recordings survive a crash or power cut, and audio is only deleted after the transcript is saved.

Knowing who said what

• When a new voice speaks, a small box asks who it is, without taking the keyboard.
• After the call every sentence is matched to a voice on your PC. Anyone unnamed is offered for naming, with a sample to play.
• Recurring meetings with the same title are filed together, and the people you named before are recognized by voice.

Shared screens

• Keeps a screenshot of the meeting window only each time it changes, so the notes can say what was shown.
• Anything on top of the meeting window is blacked out. Screenshots are deleted after processing, and you can turn them off.
• If your organization blocks screen capture of the Citrix window, MerlinMeeting carries on with audio only.

Transcription on your PC

• Speech recognition with Whisper (large-v3-turbo by default) runs locally, much faster with an NVIDIA GPU.
• The speech model is a one-time download on first start; recording works while it downloads.

Price and license

Free beta until January 31, 2027. After that, recording needs a license: $39, one time, including all 1.x updates. Licenses go on sale January 1, 2027. No subscription and no account.

• The key arrives by email. Paste it under License in the tray menu. It's checked on your PC, with no activation server.
• Without a key after January 31, meetings you already recorded are still transcribed and written up. Only new recordings stop.
• The license is separate from your Anthropic API key, which you pay Anthropic for.

Privacy

• Audio never leaves your PC. Recording, transcription and speaker recognition all run locally.
• What goes to Claude: the transcript text, the participant names and the selected meeting-window screenshots, sent with your own API key. Nothing goes to Virtual Merlin.
• The API key is kept in Windows Credential Manager, never in a settings file or log.
• Voice profiles stay on your PC as voice fingerprints, not audio, one file per meeting title.

Requirements

Install

1. Download the zip, extract it, and run the setup file inside. If Windows shows "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway. The app isn't code-signed yet.
2. Choose whether to add a desktop shortcut and start it when you sign in. The hotkey only works while MerlinMeeting is running.
3. On first start, accept the speech model download. Then right-click the tray icon, choose Claude API Key, paste your key and save.
4. Press Ctrl+Alt+P when your next meeting starts.

SHA-256 of the setup file inside the zip:

CB8E0B1921F46F2BDDA13E240DCA522A275AE051280D14CCB8624A800CBD0E28

Known limitations

• In a full-screen Citrix session, the session takes key combinations, including the hotkeys. Use the tray icon or the indicator's buttons there.
• Without headphones, it can't separate everything when you talk over someone on a loudspeaker.
• Two very similar voices may be taken for one person; you can correct it after the meeting.
• Without an NVIDIA GPU, transcribing a long meeting takes a while in the background.