Bringing in a phone call or any file Chui did not record, and how it differs from a meeting.
A recording made elsewhere — a phone call, a WhatsApp voice message, a Voice Memo, a Zoom file somebody emailed over — can be imported and becomes an ordinary meeting: transcribed, summarised, searchable, with its people folded in like any other. The door is the ↥ button in the header of the meetings list — on the iPhone, on Android, in a browser tab, and in Chui for Mac and for Windows — where it opens the device's own file chooser. On both phones there is a second door, the share sheet: from WhatsApp, Files, Notes, My Files or a voice recorder, share the recording and choose Chui (on the iPhone it may read «Copy to Chui»). This works whether or not Chui is open; the next time the meetings list is on screen the recording is there, working its way through like any other. Since build 235 a shared recording carries its file's name from the start, rather than "Untitled" until the summary arrives. A browser tab has no share-sheet door — nothing can hand a tab a file.
Chui cannot record a phone call itself: the phone stops every other app's recording for as long as a call lasts. What works is letting the phone record the call, then bringing that recording in. Both of these were tried on real calls and became meetings with the right summary.
iPhone (iOS 18.1 or newer, and not in the European Union, where Apple does not offer call recording). Turn on Settings → Apps → Phone → Call Recording, then press the record button on the call screen; everyone on the call hears that it is being recorded. The recording lands in Notes. There, tap ••• on the recording itself, then Share Audio → Chui — that route always brings the recording. Chui is also offered by the Share button at the top of the note; if the note does not hand its recording over that way, Chui says so and nothing is added. If recording starts and stops again at once, restart the phone; that fixed it.
Android. Samsung phones save call recordings in Recordings → Call (other makers use their own folder). In My Files, open that folder, press and hold the recording, tap Share and choose Chui. Or, in Chui, press ↥ on the meetings list and pick the recording from there.
Calling through Chui — only on an account that has a Chui number of its own, which is not yet offered to everybody; in the US a Chui number comes with Chui Pro (since build 236). When Pro ends, calls stop, and the number is kept for thirty days so that subscribing again brings the same number back. On such an account Chui places the call: switch on calling through Chui in Settings (off by default; since build 238 it is no longer under Labs) and a round phone button sits next to search on the main screen and opens the call. (On a free account the switch is marked «Pro», and pressing it offers Chui Pro first.) The button is hidden while a meeting records, and opens a sheet with three tabs — Recent (the calls placed through Chui; tap one to call again, or its ⓘ to open the meeting it became), Contacts and Keypad. Once you pick, the call is placed and answered inside Chui itself — on the iPhone, on a Mac, on Windows and at chui.io — and your phone does not ring first (since build 234). The Android app has no calling through Chui (since build 235). The sheet can still be set to ring your own phone first, and if the app cannot take the call (its microphone refused, or it is not signed in to calls) Chui rings your phone instead and the call screen says so. Both see your Chui number — unless you confirm your own mobile (the sheet offers it: a code is texted to it, you type it back) and choose «My own number», and then the person you call sees that instead. Calls showing your own number are ordinary phone quality rather than HD, and if that number stops being confirmed a call shows your Chui number and says so. The sheet and the call screen always say which number the other side sees. When you hang up, the call becomes an ordinary meeting filed under that person. An assistant can do the same: place_call() places one (to a number typed or a contact), list_calls() lists the calls placed, get_call() follows one, hang_up_call() ends it, start_phone_proof() and finish_phone_proof() confirm your own number, and get_phone_line() / set_phone_line() read and change the number's settings — whether the other person first hears that the call is recorded, which phone is rung first, and which number the other side sees. set_call_button() switches the main screen's call button on or off, and get_account() says which it is.
Chui takes audio as m4a, aac, mp3, wav, flac, ogg, opus or webm, on every surface. On the iPhone, the Mac and Windows it also takes a video — mp4, m4v, or a QuickTime mov, the way Zoom, Teams and QuickTime save a call — through the ↥ button and, on the iPhone, through «Copy to Chui» too. It uses only the sound: the sound track is copied out on the device and that is all that is sent, so the pictures never leave it. A video with no sound Chui can read is refused with that as the reason. chui.io and the Android app take audio only; a video from there has to be imported from the iPhone, or the Mac or Windows app. A file Chui cannot read is refused with that as the reason rather than failing later.
Three things are different about an imported meeting:
Importing audio is done in the app. An assistant cannot upload a recording.
Somebody moving to Chui from another notetaker can bring their old meetings with them as text — one meeting, or the whole account in one go. Both go in with the same ↥ button on the iPhone, on Android and on chui.io, or through the share sheet on either phone. The Mac and Windows apps take audio only.
One meeting (since build 191, and on the phones since build 229): export its transcript from the other tool — Otter as txt (the only export on Otter's free plan), Fireflies as md or srt, Granola as markdown (md) — or any srt or vtt subtitle file.
The whole account (since build 229):
Chui makes a meeting of every transcript inside and leaves out the rest (recordings, PDFs, Word files, summaries beside a transcript). The line under ↥ counts the meetings as they go in. If it stops part way — the phone locked, the network went — import the same file again: meetings already in are not made twice, and one you deleted in between stays deleted. Fathom and Read AI have no export of their own, so their meetings cannot be brought this way.
Chui reads who said what, the names the other tool put on the speakers, the timestamps, a title and a date written in the file, and any notes written above a «Transcript» heading. A file in a layout it does not recognise still becomes a meeting, as plain paragraphs with nobody's name on them.
Such a meeting:
A connected assistant can do this too, one meeting per call, with import_transcript(): give it the exports (or connect it to the other tool as well) and ask it to bring them into Chui, each with the date it happened.