What you need to run Recordstead
Recordstead does all of its work on your Mac, so what your Mac can do is what Recordstead can do. There are four things to check.
An Apple Silicon Mac
Section titled “An Apple Silicon Mac”Recordstead ships as an Apple Silicon build. An Intel Mac cannot run it.
macOS 26 or later
Section titled “macOS 26 or later”Earlier versions are not supported and the app will not launch on them.
8 GB of memory, and what 16 GB adds
Section titled “8 GB of memory, and what 16 GB adds”8 GB is the supported minimum. Recording and transcription work there, and the smaller summary model runs, more slowly.
At 16 GB and above Recordstead offers a larger summary model, which writes better notes. Nothing is blocked below that; the choice is simply not offered.
Free space, in two parts
Section titled “Free space, in two parts”Recordstead downloads its models the first time it needs them, so the space it wants is the model plus room to work:
| What | Size |
|---|---|
| Speech recognition and speaker separation | about 0.5 GB, fetched automatically |
| Summary model, smaller | 3.3 GB, downloaded on request |
| Summary model, larger, offered at 16 GB and above | 5.2 GB, downloaded on request |
| Working room for recordings | about 4 GB |
A summary model is offered only when there is room for it plus that working room, so a full Mac is told rather than filled.
Let the app answer for your Mac
Section titled “Let the app answer for your Mac”The setup window opens on a step titled Your Mac can do all of this, which checks your actual machine and says, per capability, Ready now, Works, but slowly on this Mac, or Needs more memory than this Mac has. The line beginning **Checked for this Mac: ** names the chip, the memory and the free space it read.
Nothing there blocks you. It tells you what to expect.
Result
Section titled “Result”You know whether your Mac qualifies, and which parts will be slow if it only just does.