How to set up calendar sync so your meeting notes start themselves

Meeting notes without a calendar are guesswork. The note is called “Meeting, 3pm”, the transcript says Speaker 1 and Speaker 2, and you only remember to press Record halfway through the first agenda item.

Connect your calendar once and most of that goes away. trepil reads your events, so each note knows what the meeting was and who was in it, and it reminds you before the call so you never start late.

It takes about two minutes, on your Mac.

What the calendar gives your notes

trepil reads three things from each event: the title, the time and the people invited. That is enough to:

Name the note after the meeting, so “Pricing call with Brightwell” is what you search for later.
Put real names in the transcript. The invite says Emma and Jack were there, so the transcript says Emma and Jack instead of Speaker 2 and Speaker 3.
Show your day under Coming up, with a Join the call button for each meeting that has a link.
Bring up a reminder before each meeting, with Take notes on it.

trepil only reads. It never adds, moves or changes anything in your calendar.

Step 1: Put your calendars in Apple Calendar

trepil on the Mac reads the calendars already on your Mac. If your work calendar is in Google or Microsoft 365, add that account to macOS first: open System Settings, then Internet Accounts, add the account and turn on Calendars. It now shows in the Calendar app, next to iCloud.

A direct connection to Google Calendar and Outlook, for the web app too, is on the way. Until then, this is how a Google or Outlook calendar reaches trepil.

Step 2: Turn on Apple Calendar in trepil

In the Mac app, open Settings, then Meetings, and find Calendars. Turn on Apple Calendar. macOS asks once for permission to read your calendars; allow it. Your meetings show up under Coming up within a moment.

Subscribed calendars, like public holidays or a football fixture list, start hidden, since you will never take notes in them.

Step 3: Hide what isn’t a meeting

Most calendars carry events you will never record: focus time, lunch, the school run. Leave them in and they clutter Coming up and set off reminders you don’t want.

Find one in Coming up, open it, and choose:

Hide this one for a one-off.
Hide every time for a repeating event.
Hide all with this name for anything titled the same, like every “Focus” block, whichever calendar it is on.

A hidden event sends no reminders, gets no brief and never names a note. You can bring any of them back from Hidden events in Settings, Meetings.

Step 4: Turn on meeting reminders

Open Settings, then Notifications, and turn on Meeting reminders. The Mac lets you know ten minutes before each meeting, and a minute before, a card comes up with Take notes on it. One click and trepil is recording, with the meeting’s name and people already filled in.

Step 5: Read the brief before you join

Each meeting with other people in it gets a short brief before it starts: what you discussed with them last time, what was left open, and what is worth raising. It is written from your own notes, so the more meetings you have recorded with someone, the more useful it gets.

If a meeting doesn’t need one, open it in Coming up and choose No brief for this meeting. You can turn briefs off altogether in Settings, Meetings.

If something looks wrong

A meeting is missing. Check it shows in the Calendar app on your Mac, that its calendar isn’t hidden in trepil, and that it isn’t in Hidden events.
Names in the transcript are wrong. Click a name to fix it. trepil remembers the voice for next time.
You want to stop. Open Settings, Meetings and turn Apple Calendar off. trepil stops reading it and forgets its events.

Then let the meeting run

Once the calendar is in, a meeting with trepil is: the reminder comes up, you click Take notes, you talk. When you press Stop, the note is already titled, the transcript has names in it, and it ends with a checklist of who does what. If you want to get more out of that checklist, read how to structure your meeting checklists.