How it works

The complete guide to Scriber Pro 2.0

Updated October 17, 2026

What Scriber Pro is

Scriber Pro is a native macOS app that turns the speech in audio and video into text. Transcription runs on the Mac itself, using OpenAI’s Whisper speech recognition model through whisper.cpp. Files are never uploaded, there is no account, and there is no cloud transcription service behind it.

Price: $3.99, a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store. No subscription.
Requirements: macOS 15.6 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later).
Version: 2.0 (October 2026).
Made by: Cameron Brooks. Website: https://scriberpro.cc

Four ways to transcribe

1. Audio and video files

Drag a file onto the Scriber Pro window, or click Browse. Choose an export format and click Transcribe. The transcript appears in the window, is saved next to the original file (or in a folder you choose in Settings), and is added to your library.

Audio: MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AIFF, CAF
Video: MP4, MOV, M4V, MPEG, 3GP, TS

Long recordings. Recordings longer than about an hour are split automatically into 55-minute parts, transcribed one after another and joined back together, with timestamps that continue across the parts. There is nothing extra to do. A 4.5-hour video transcribes in under 4 minutes on Apple Silicon.

2. Batch transcription

Drop or select several files at once. The first file’s path shows in the file field, and a small yellow badge shows how many files are queued. Click Transcribe and Scriber works through them one by one; the badge counts down as each file finishes. If one file fails, the rest of the batch continues.

To clear the queue, press Esc, or hover over the badge and click the ✕.
Cancel stops the batch and keeps the unfinished files queued, so you can pick up where you left off.

3. YouTube transcripts

Click YouTube, paste a YouTube link and click Transcribe. Scriber fetches the video’s captions, preferring human-made captions over automatic ones, and saves the transcript under the video’s title in any of the export formats. It works for videos that have captions; private, removed and age-restricted videos can’t be fetched.

4. Web Fetch: web videos and M3U8 streams

Web Fetch takes the link to a web page, finds the videos on it, including the M3U8 (HLS) streams behind most web video players, and transcribes the one you pick. A direct .m3u8 link works too.

Step by step, as it appears on screen:

Turn on Web Fetch. Click the Web Fetch button next to YouTube. It glows gold and shows a check mark, and the file field becomes a Video page URL field. Click the button again to go back to transcribing files.
Paste the page link. Paste the address of the page that plays the video, for example a lesson page in a Canvas course, into Video page URL, and click Find Videos.
Sign in, if the page asks. If the page needs a login, a card appears: “canvas.oregonstate.edu needs you to sign in. Sign in once and Scriber will remember it, then look for the video again.” Click Sign In…. A window opens showing the site’s own sign-in page; sign in as you normally would (school single sign-on and two-factor work as usual), then click Done. Scriber looks for the videos again, and remembers the sign-in next time.
Pick the video. A Video menu lists every video found on the page, with its title, length and quality, plus a count such as “2 videos found”. In our example, a course page listed “AI 534 - Part 0.1 — 11:09 · 360p · stream” and “AI 534 - Part 0.2 — 15:21 · 360p · stream”.
Transcribe. Click Transcribe. The status line shows “Downloading audio…” with a percentage while Scriber fetches the stream, and the row of gold progress orbs fills as it goes; then the transcription runs on your Mac. Cancel stops it at any point.
Done. The status line shows “Transcription saved:” followed by the file’s location. The file is named after the video (for example “AI 534 - Part 0.1.txt”) and saved to your Downloads folder, or to the folder you chose in Settings. The transcript, broken into paragraphs, appears in the Transcription Output area and is added to your library.

In our test, steps 5 and 6 together took 47 seconds for the 11-minute lecture.

Pages behind a sign-in, such as Canvas or Kaltura course videos and company video portals: Scriber opens the site’s own sign-in window. Sign in once and it remembers you.
Built into the app, not a browser extension: Web Fetch starts from the page, finds the stream itself, handles sign-ins in the site’s own window and fetches the stream directly instead of recording it while it plays. Nothing to install in the browser, and the transcript joins the rest of your library.
What it replaces: finding the .m3u8 link in the browser’s developer tools, downloading it with yt-dlp or ffmpeg, then dragging the file into a transcription app. No browser extension is needed.
Speed: in our test, an 11-minute lecture behind a university sign-in was transcribed 47 seconds after pasting the link, including fetching the stream.
How: Scriber fetches the lightest version of the stream, keeps only the audio, transcribes it on the Mac and then deletes the audio.
Not supported: copy-protected (DRM) videos and live streams.

More detail: https://scriberpro.cc/web-fetch/

The library

Every transcript is saved to a library (Library in the File menu, or ⌘L).

Sidebar: All Transcriptions, Recently Added, Favorites and your own categories.
Search across all transcripts.
Double-click a title to rename it; open a transcript to read or edit its text.
Right-click to mark a favorite, set a category, export, share or delete.
The library syncs through your own private iCloud account, so it is the same on each of your Macs.
Transcripts made with Web Fetch are marked in gold and keep the page they came from.

Export formats

TXT, RTF, Markdown, PDF, DOCX, SRT, VTT, JSON and CSV.

Settings

Open Settings with ⌘,.

Default language and export format.
Where transcripts are saved: next to the original file, or a folder you choose.
Turn YouTube and Web Fetch on or off. With both off, Scriber never connects to a website.

Privacy

Transcription always runs on your Mac. Audio and video files are never uploaded.
No account, no analytics, no tracking.
YouTube and Web Fetch connect only to the site you paste, and only while fetching.
Sign-ins made in Web Fetch are kept on your Mac by macOS’s web engine, like a browser’s saved login. They are never sent to the developer.
Full policy: https://scriberpro.cc/privacy/

Help and shortcuts

Help ▸ Scriber Pro Help (⌘?) opens the in-app guide to batch, YouTube and Web Fetch.
⌘L Library · ⌘, Settings · Esc clears the batch queue.
Support: [email protected] · https://scriberpro.cc/support/

Questions

Does Scriber Pro need an internet connection?

Not for files: transcription runs entirely on your Mac and works offline. YouTube and Web Fetch need a connection while they fetch.

Does Scriber Pro upload my audio or video?

No. Transcription happens on your Mac, and your files never leave it.

Is there a subscription?

No. Scriber Pro is a one-time $3.99 purchase on the Mac App Store.

How long can a recording be?

Multi-hour recordings work. Anything longer than about an hour is split and rejoined automatically.

Can Scriber Pro transcribe a video from a web page or an M3U8 link?

Yes. Web Fetch finds the videos on a page, including M3U8 (HLS) streams, and transcribes the one you pick. A direct .m3u8 link works too.

Yes. Scriber opens the site’s own sign-in window; sign in once and it remembers you.

How is Web Fetch different from a browser extension or yt-dlp?

Web Fetch is built into the Scriber Pro Mac app. It starts from the web page, finds the video’s M3U8 (HLS) stream itself, handles sign-ins in the site’s own window and fetches the stream directly instead of recording it while it plays. There is nothing to install in the browser and no command line, and the transcript is saved to Scriber’s library.

Do I need a browser extension or command-line tools?

No. Scriber Pro is a standalone Mac app. There is no need for a browser extension, developer tools, yt-dlp or ffmpeg.

Which Macs does it run on?

macOS 15.6 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later).