Run Recordstead from Shortcuts or Spotlight
Recordstead publishes five actions to macOS. You can put them into your own shortcuts, and four of them run straight from Spotlight without the app coming to the front.
The five actions
Section titled “The five actions”| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start Call Detection | Starts watching for calls, as the menu bar does |
| Stop Call Detection | Stops watching |
| Record an App | Opens the Record App window so you can pick the app |
| Open Last Summary | Brings the most recent meeting to the front |
| Add Meeting from File | Adds one meeting per file you give it |
Record an App and Open Last Summary open a window, because both exist to show you something. The other three do their work with the app still in the background.
Add Meeting from File takes a Files input and gives back the number of meetings it added, so a shortcut can act on that count. What it does with each file is the same as adding one by hand.
Build one into a shortcut
Section titled “Build one into a shortcut”- Open Shortcuts.
- Make a new shortcut and search its action list for
Recordstead. The five actions are listed together. - Add the one you want and run it.
Recordstead does not need to be open first. An action that works in the background starts the app without showing a window.
Run one from Spotlight
Section titled “Run one from Spotlight”Press ⌘Space, type the name of the action, and press Return.
Four of the five work this way. Add Meeting from File is not offered in Spotlight, because it cannot run until you have chosen the files; use it in the Shortcuts app, where you can.
Result
Section titled “Result”Your shortcut starts or stops a recording, or opens a meeting, without you touching the menu bar.
When an action refuses
Section titled “When an action refuses”Two refusals are worth knowing in advance, because a shortcut shows you the message with nothing else around it.
Before your first recording Recordstead asks you once to confirm that recording lawfully is your responsibility, and an action cannot ask on its own:
Call Detection needs a one-time confirmation. Open Recordstead and start Call Detection there first.
Do that once in the app, as on Record your first meeting, and the action works from then on.
The second happens when your meetings could not be unlocked at launch:
Your meetings are locked, so Recordstead cannot record or process anything yet. Open the app to unlock them.
Nothing an action can do unlocks them. Open the app, unlock your meetings, and run the shortcut again.
Siri does not run these by voice
Section titled “Siri does not run these by voice”Speaking one of these actions to Siri on a Mac does not work, and Siri answers that it does not understand. Voice invocation of an app's actions is not available on macOS, so this is not a setting you can turn on and not something Recordstead can fix.
Spotlight and the Shortcuts app are the two ways in, and both are above.