Oatmeal

Getting started with Oatmeal

Oatmeal sits in your Windows tray, notices when you are on a call, records both sides, and writes the meeting notes for you. No bot joins the call. Recordings and transcripts are saved on your computer. AI notes send the transcript to Anthropic on your key; optional cloud transcription can also send audio to Deepgram.

Setup takes about fifteen minutes, most of it a one-time download the app does by itself. You do not need a license key to start. Every feature works for 30 days, free. The section near the bottom of this guide, "What happens after 30 days," explains what happens when the evaluation ends.

What you need

Step 1. Download and install

  1. Download the installer: oatmeal-api.onpointtech-aisos.workers.dev/dl/latest.
  2. Open it. Windows will show a blue "Windows protected your PC" box, because the installer is new and not yet signed with a paid certificate. Click More info, then Run anyway. This warning is about the installer's history, not about what the app does with your data.
  3. It installs for your user only, so it never asks for an admin password. Oatmeal opens when it finishes and a small icon lands in the tray, bottom right near the clock. If you do not see it, click the little up arrow there.

Step 2. Let it finish its one-time download

The first time it runs, Oatmeal downloads its transcription engine in two parts: ffmpeg (about 260 MB) and the speech model (about 490 MB), roughly 750 MB in total. The main window shows the progress. You can do the next steps while it runs, but do not record a real meeting yet.

A meeting recorded before the download finishes simply waits. It shows "recorded" with a message that it will run on its own once the engine lands, and starts processing the moment it does. Nothing is lost, and nothing runs on the wrong engine in the meantime.

Step 3. Fill in Settings

Settings opens by itself the first time. If it did not, click the tray icon, then Settings.

  1. Who this is for. Your first name, full name, and company. The notes use this to know which speaker is you.
  2. Anthropic key. Click Get a key on the Anthropic row. It opens the provider's page. Set up API billing, create a key, and paste it in. Click Test. Check your provider usage and spending limits after a short sample meeting. A Claude subscription does not include this API usage.
  3. Deepgram key (optional). It has the same two buttons and works the same way.
  4. CRM (optional). See Step 5. Skip this and Oatmeal is a recorder with notes.

Step 4. Record your first meeting

You do not need a real call to try it.

  1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R anywhere. A small pill appears with a timer. You are recording. That is the default shortcut. If it does not respond, open Settings: it shows the shortcut that actually registered on your computer, and you can change it there, since another program can already own a key combination.
  2. Talk for a minute. Play a video with someone speaking so there is another side to the conversation.
  3. Press the shortcut again, or Stop on the pill.
  4. Give it a minute or two. A "Meeting notes ready" message pops up. Click the tray icon to open your library and read the notes and the transcript.

On a real call, Oatmeal can prompt you to record. When Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, or a phone dialer in your browser takes the microphone for about 20 seconds, a popup in the bottom right asks "Record this meeting?" Not this call stops prompts for that call; Never for this app disables them for that app. The shortcut is available when you need to start recording yourself.

Screen recording starts off on a new install. Tick "Record my screen too" when you want a replay, or turn on "Record my screen by default" in Settings. "Screen frames for the notes" is a separate setting that lets selected screenshots go to the AI notes provider. Leave it off if you only want audio-based notes.

Step 5. Connect GoHighLevel (optional)

Skip this and Oatmeal still records, transcribes, and writes notes. It just will not file anything in your CRM. To connect it:

  1. In your GHL sub-account, create a Private Integration (Settings, Private Integrations, New).
  2. Give it exactly these permissions, no more and no fewer:
    • View Contacts (contacts.readonly)
    • Edit Contacts (contacts.write), which is what creates the tasks and the meeting note
    • View Calendars (calendars.readonly)
    • View Calendar Events (calendars/events.readonly)
  3. Paste the token and your location id into Settings, CRM, and click Test. It checks each permission and tells you in plain English which ones are missing, if any.
  4. Create one contact to be your task board, and paste its id into Settings, CRM. This is where a meeting's tasks go when Oatmeal cannot confidently match the meeting to a client. Without a task board contact set, a meeting with no matched contact files nothing, and Settings tells you so rather than failing silently. The contact itself is a one-time click in your own CRM (Contacts, New Contact, any name like "Task Board" works).
  5. Set task assignees. In Settings, CRM, fill in Assignable users. Match each teammate's lowercase first name to their GoHighLevel user ID, for example dana=USER_ID, sam=OTHER_USER_ID. Include yourself using the first name in your Oatmeal profile. A user ID identifies a team member; it is different from a contact ID. Without a matching user ID, a task can be created without an assignee. "Your CRM user id" controls the booking filter; Assignable users controls task assignment.
  6. Check one test task. Open it in GoHighLevel and check the contact, text, assignee and deadline. If the notes have no usable date, Oatmeal schedules it for 5 p.m. two weekdays after the meeting. An explicit date uses 5 p.m.; if that time has passed when the task is filed, it moves to 9 a.m. the next day. These are local-computer times. A default deadline does not mean someone agreed to that date.

What Oatmeal sends, and to whom

The public download creates notes and can file CRM tasks. It does not include On Point Tech's internal approval inbox or automated client recap emails. The connection above does not require message-sending permission.

Writing notes with AI means sending the AI something to read. This is the complete list.

To Anthropic, on your own key
The meeting transcript, up to 18 screenshots of your screen if you turn on screen capture in Settings, and what your CRM already says about that contact. Screenshots are off by default; turning them on is a single Settings toggle, and only frames from calls recorded after you turn it on are ever sent.
To Deepgram, only if you add that key
Audio for cloud transcription and remote speaker separation. Microphone audio can also go there when local transcription is unavailable or unsuitable for the selected language. First-run engine downloads normally hold processing until ready. With no Deepgram key, nothing goes to Deepgram.
To your GoHighLevel, if you connect it
The tasks from the meeting, and a bare "meeting logged" note on the contact. Never the transcript, never the summary.
To the licensing service, only once you enter a license key
The key and a one-way hash of this computer's name and account, so one key can be held to three computers.
Everything else stays on your computer
The audio, the screen video, the transcript files, and the notes are files on your disk. On Point Tech does not receive any of them. Every meeting in your library also carries its own record of exactly what left your computer for that meeting.

Many states, California included, need everyone on the call to agree to a recording. No bot joins your call, so nobody else can see that Oatmeal is running. Tell them at the start, every time.

Oatmeal helps. When a recording starts, the pill shows the line to say, with a “Copy for chat” button so you can paste it into the meeting chat too. Once everyone says yes, click “Everyone agreed” and the meeting file notes it. You can change the line, or switch the reminder off, in Settings. A short chime also plays when recording starts and stops, so you always know it’s running.

What happens after 30 days

Every feature works from the moment you install Oatmeal. You do not need a license key for the first 30 days.

After 30 days of use, Oatmeal shows a reminder that a license is required to keep using the official build. It appears at most once a day and never while you are recording. A license is one payment, no subscription, and it covers you on up to three computers. Full terms: the license page.

The reminder window has a Buy button that opens the license page in your browser. You pay once, the key arrives by email a few minutes later, and pasting it into Settings, License turns the reminder off.

Where your stuff lives

Everything is in one folder: press Windows and R, type %APPDATA%\Oatmeal, press Enter.

Screen video is removed after 14 days unless you pin the meeting. Notes, transcripts, and audio stay until you delete them.

Uninstalling does not delete any of this on purpose, so your recordings and keys are never at the mercy of a reinstall. If you want your API keys gone too, either open secrets.env in Notepad and clear the lines yourself, or delete the whole %APPDATA%\Oatmeal folder once you have copied out any meetings you want to keep.

If something is off

Last updated: September 26, 2026. Full sales page and pricing: optechsol.llc/oatmeal.