Lecture Lens
Lecture Lens turns the lectures you attend online into a transcript, slide-linked notes and flashcards. It runs on your own Mac with local models, and nothing is uploaded.
It has two parts:
- A toolkit (zsh and Python) that starts and stops capture, finds lecture sessions in what was captured, and builds study material.
- A macOS app (SwiftUI) that controls the toolkit, shows health, lists lectures, answers questions and runs evaluations.
Capture itself is done by screenpipe, which you install separately.
Who it is for
A working professional taking a part-time online course: recorded lectures during the week, a live class at the weekend, and little time to re-watch either.
What you get per lecture
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
transcript.md | Timecoded speech-to-text |
slides/ and slides.md | The distinct slides, each with a description and its on-screen text |
notes.md | Notes with time and slide citations, action items and open questions |
cards.tsv | Flashcards you can import into a spaced-repetition app |
manifest.json | What was built, from what, with which models and prompt versions |
Limits you should know first
- macOS on Apple silicon only.
- Copy-protected video is not recorded. On those pages screen capture pauses and audio continues. See Privacy and protected video.
- Transcripts are incomplete. In one measured live class about a quarter of spoken words were missing compared with the meeting app's own transcript. See Tech debt.
- Local models are slow. A 90-minute class takes roughly ten minutes to build; a full evaluation run takes over an hour.