The short answer: dictate a note with your hotkey (⌃+⌥+R on Mac, Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows/Linux), and AICHE files it under Work, Ideas, Life, or Misc automatically. No tags to pick, no folders to set up, no rules to write.
Voice notes pile up fast. A quick thought before lunch, a customer detail between meetings, an idea on a walk. Without categorization, your history turns into one long undifferentiated list and you spend more time scrolling than capturing.
How It Works
- Position your cursor in any app, or just open AICHE if you only want the note saved.
- Press ⌃+⌥+R on Mac or Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows/Linux to start recording. Press it again to stop. Recording is toggle, not push-to-talk, with no length cap.
- AICHE transcribes the audio and applies AI cleanup - filler words removed, punctuation and paragraph breaks added.
- Auto-categorization reads the cleaned text and assigns one of four categories: Work, Ideas, Life, or Misc.
- The note lands in your history under that category. You can filter the list by category to find it again.
The pro-tip: auto-categorization runs on the cleaned transcript, so a clearer first sentence usually leads to a more accurate category. If a note straddles topics ("I had an idea for the Q3 launch while picking up groceries"), AICHE picks the dominant one. You can move it later if you disagree.
What the Four Categories Cover
| Category | Example dictated sentence | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Work | "Action items from Priya sync: ship staging URL, push launch to Tuesday." | History filter on desktop and mobile; same label on synced devices |
| Ideas | "Onboarding idea: skip welcome screen for returning users on same device." | Ideas filter when reviewing capture from walks |
| Life | "Pick up dry cleaning, vet appointment Saturday, oil change before trip." | Life filter keeps personal errands out of Work scroll |
| Misc | "Random thought about coffee shop wifi password." | Misc when no dominant job/personal/idea signal |
Categories apply after transcription and AI cleanup. There is no manual rule builder; you can move a miscategorized note afterward in history.
Why No Manual Tagging
Most note systems ask you to pick a folder or tag before or after each entry. That choice point is friction. Friction kills capture. People who use voice well are using it for moments when typing wouldn't work, which is the same moment that picking a folder wouldn't work either.
Auto-categorization removes the choice. You speak, you stop, the note is filed. If the category is wrong on a specific note, fix that one. If it's right four times in five, you saved the four taps and only paid for one.
Auto-Categorization in the Pipeline
Auto-categorization runs after transcription and AI cleanup. The order matters:
- Audio is streamed to Groq for transcription (~3 seconds for 15 minutes of audio).
- AI cleanup removes filler ("um", "uh", "like"), stutters, and repetitions. It adds punctuation and paragraph breaks.
- The cleaned text is read for category fit. One label is applied.
- The note saves locally. If cloud sync is on, it syncs end-to-end encrypted (AES-256-GCM, Argon2id key derivation, modern TLS in transit).
Audio itself is dropped immediately after processing, within 1 second. No audio is kept on our servers. The category lives on the note record, not the audio.
Where It Shows Up
- Mobile (iPhone, iPad, Android). History tab groups notes by category. Tap a category to filter the list. Apple Watch recordings sync to iPhone and inherit the same category.
- Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux). The history view shows the same four categories. You can search by date as well.
- Chrome extension and Obsidian plugin. Notes captured through either surface land in your AICHE history with categories applied, same as desktop or mobile capture.
Practical Examples
Meeting Captures
You leave a 1:1, dictate "Action items: send Priya the staging URL, update the contract draft, decision was to push launch to next Tuesday." The note lands under Work, joining the rest of your meeting notes from that week.
Idea Capture on a Walk
You're pacing the block and say, "Idea for the onboarding flow: skip the welcome screen for returning users on the same device." Files under Ideas. Six weeks later you filter Ideas and the note is there with the rest.
Personal Admin
"Pick up dry cleaning, book vet for Saturday, schedule oil change before the trip." Files under Life. Doesn't pollute the Work category when you scan it on Monday morning.
Mixed Note
"Reminder to grab dinner stuff on the way home, and also I want to try restructuring the auth module to use refresh tokens." Auto-categorization picks the dominant topic. If you'd rather split that into two notes, dictate them separately.
What You Get
- Auto-categorization across all devices. Same four categories on macOS, Windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Android, Chrome extension, and Obsidian plugin.
- AI cleanup. Filler words removed, punctuation and paragraph breaks added. Auto-categorization reads the cleaned text.
- Custom vocabulary. 50 entries per user for names, brands, and jargon you use often. Spelled correctly every time, which helps the categorization read intent.
- 99 transcription languages. Same Whisper engine on desktop and mobile. Mobile UI is localized to 28 languages, including right-to-left Arabic and Hebrew.
- Software Development profile (Pro). Recognition tuned for code, APIs, library names, and CLI flags. Code-heavy dictation typically lands in Work.
- Zero-retention audio. Audio is streamed to Groq, processed, and discarded immediately after processing, within 1 second. Cloud sync is opt-in and AES-256-GCM encrypted with an Argon2id-derived key. Modern TLS in transit.
- Privacy-first diagnostics. Diagnostics are user-initiated only - the OS-level "share with developer" prompt after a crash, or a manual "Send Diagnostic Report" button you click yourself. Your transcripts, recordings, and sharing behavior never enter our pipeline.
Available on Personal and Pro. Personal is $4.99/mo monthly or $3.99/mo on annual (3 devices). Pro is $9.99/mo monthly or $8.33/mo on annual (10 devices, plus Software Development profile, Voice Code for AI coding agents, REST API, and priority processing). From $3.99/mo with a 7-day free trial, no credit card. See pricing.
Result: a week's worth of voice notes lands in four predictable buckets without you picking a single tag. Scrolling history goes from one undifferentiated list to four short ones, and the note you're looking for is in the bucket you'd guess.
Do this now: dictate three notes in a row - one work thought, one personal errand, one half-formed idea - then open your history and filter by category. The three notes should be sitting under Work, Life, and Ideas without you touching a tag.