> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vowen.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Watch folders

> Point Vowen at a folder and every file dropped into it is transcribed or turned into a meeting note.

<div style={{ marginTop: "-2.5rem" }}>
  <Info>Watch folders are a <a href="https://vowen.ai" className="font-semibold underline-offset-2" style={{ color: "#8b5cf6", backgroundColor: "rgba(139, 92, 246, 0.12)", border: "1px solid rgba(139, 92, 246, 0.35)", padding: "2px 8px", borderRadius: "6px", fontSize: "0.85em", textDecoration: "none", whiteSpace: "nowrap" }}>Pro</a> feature. They are not available on the Free plan.</Info>
</div>

<Warning>
  **Existing files are skipped, not backfilled.** The first time Vowen sees a folder it takes a
  snapshot of everything already in it and marks all of it as handled, without transcribing any of it.
  Adding `~/Downloads` does **not** kick off a run over the 400 files already sitting there. Only files
  that arrive **after** you add the folder are processed.

  If you want an existing file processed, move it out and back in, or use the manual
  [Transcribe](/transcription/manual-transcription) or **Import** flow instead.
</Warning>

## Overview

A watch folder is a directory on your machine that Vowen keeps an eye on. Drop an audio or video file
into it and Vowen picks it up and runs it through one of two pipelines, depending on what kind of
folder it is:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Transcription folders" icon="file-audio">
    The file becomes a manual transcription, exactly as if you had dropped it into the Transcribe
    dialog. Rules fall back to your **Transcribe > Defaults**.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Meeting note folders" icon="file-lines">
    The file becomes a full meeting note: transcribed, summarized with a template you pick, tagged,
    and pushed through your Obsidian and webhook integrations like a live recording.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Note>
  A folder's kind is fixed by where you added it. There is no destination switch inside the folder
  editor, so each list stays homogeneous. To change a folder's kind, remove it from one list and add
  it again from the other.
</Note>

## Where they live

| Kind          | Where you add it                                                                             |
| ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Transcription | **Transcribe** in the left sidebar, gear icon in the toolbar, then the **Watch folders** tab |
| Meeting note  | **Notes** in the left sidebar, gear icon in the toolbar, then the **Watch folders** tab      |

Each modal lists only its own kind of folder.

## Adding a folder

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the Watch folders tab">
    Use the table above to open the right one for the kind of folder you want.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Click Add Folder">
    A native folder picker opens. Pick the directory you want watched. The same path cannot be
    watched twice, even across the two lists.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set the folder's rules">
    Vowen drops you straight into the folder's editor. Everything here is optional, and anything you
    leave alone follows your defaults. Use the back button in the modal header when you are done.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Every folder row has a checkbox to enable or disable it, a pencil to reopen its rules, and a bin to
stop watching it. A folder whose path no longer exists is marked **Folder not found** in red and is
skipped until the path comes back.

## Which files are picked up

* **Audio:** `mp3`, `wav`, `m4a`, `aac`, `ogg`, `flac`, `wma`, `opus`
* **Video:** `mp4`, `mov`, `avi`, `mkv`, `webm`, `flv`, `wmv`, `mpeg`, `mpg`

Anything else is ignored, as are files whose name starts with a dot.

<Note>
  Vowen watches only the files directly inside the folder. Subfolders are not scanned, so nesting a
  directory inside a watch folder does nothing.
</Note>

A new file is not queued the instant it appears. Vowen waits until its size has stopped changing
across two checks two seconds apart, so a file that is still being copied or downloaded is never
transcribed half-finished. If a file is still growing after about two minutes Vowen gives up on that
attempt and retries on the next scan.

Files that land while Vowen is closed are picked up the next time you launch it, because the record
of what has already been handled is stored on disk rather than in memory.

Jobs run strictly one at a time regardless of your plan. Dropping five recordings in at once queues
five jobs, not five simultaneous transcription pipelines.

<Note>
  Vowen marks a file as handled the moment it is queued, before the job runs. If a job fails, the
  failed entry stays visible so you can retry it by hand. It is not re-queued automatically on the
  next scan.
</Note>

## Per-folder rules

Open a folder's editor with the pencil icon. Every row shows its **effective** value, so a rule you
have not set reads as `Notes default (Parakeet V2)` or `Transcription default (Auto-detect)` rather
than as blank.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Tags">
    Applied to every item the folder creates. Transcription folders draw from the transcription tag
    pool; meeting note folders draw from the notes tag pool, which is a separate list.

    On a meeting note folder these tags are combined with the tags the
    [summary template](/meeting-notes/templates) already applies. The folder's tags come first.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Transcription model">
    Which speech model transcribes files from this folder. Unset means the folder follows your
    default, which for a transcription folder is the **Transcribe > Defaults** model and for a
    meeting note folder is your meeting notes model.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Language">
    Auto-detect, or a specific language. The list of choices depends on the model the folder resolves
    to, so changing the model can change what is offered here.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Summary template">
    Meeting note folders only. The template used to summarize every note this folder produces. It
    also names the folder that gets written to Obsidian. Unset means the folder uses whatever your
    default template currently is.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Identify speakers">
    Runs [speaker diarization](/meeting-notes/diarization) on files from this folder. Only shown when
    the folder's model supports it.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Number of speakers">
    Auto-detect, or a fixed count from 2 to 6. Only shown when speaker identification is on and the
    resolved model honours a speaker count.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Add timestamps">
    Transcription folders only, and only while speaker identification is off. Meeting notes always
    keep segment timings, because the transcript in a note is clickable.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Notify me when complete">
    Shows a banner when the job finishes. On meeting note folders this is **on by default**, because
    the banner is how you find out the automation ran at all.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

Once a folder has at least one override, a **Reset folder rules** row appears at the bottom of the
editor. Resetting clears every override so the folder follows your defaults again.

### How inheritance works

A rule that is unset inherits, and the two kinds of folder inherit from different places:

* **Transcription folders** resolve against `transcribeDefaults`, which is the **Transcribe >
  Defaults** tab: model, language, identify speakers, number of speakers, timestamps and notify.
  The auto-export settings on the **Auto-export** tab apply too, so a watched-folder transcription
  can write a `.txt`, `.srt` or `.vtt` alongside itself if you have that turned on.
* **Meeting note folders** resolve against your meeting notes preferences, the same chain the
  **Import** dialog uses: model, language, diarization, AI provider and summary template.

Because inheritance is live, changing a default later changes what your folders do, for every rule
you never overrode.

## What a meeting note folder produces

A note from a watch folder is a full note, not a stripped-down one. It is transcribed, summarized with
the folder's template, and then fires the same [Obsidian](/integrations/obsidian) and
[webhook](/integrations/webhooks) integrations a live recording does.

The note appears in your **Notes** list immediately as a processing placeholder, already carrying the
folder's tags and the template's tags. It is not tagged later once the summary lands.

## Quotas and gating

* Disabling the watch folders feature, or losing Pro, stops every folder. Nothing is queued while the
  entitlement is off.
* Transcription folders still count against the lifetime manual-transcription quota. Once you are at
  the limit, new files are skipped rather than queued.
* Meeting note folders go through the same import gate as the **Import** button, which is also Pro.
* A file that already has a history entry or an existing note with the same source path is skipped,
  so importing something by hand first does not produce a duplicate.

## Disabling versus removing

<Warning>
  These are not the same thing.

  **Unticking** a folder pauses it but keeps its record of which files it has already seen, so
  re-enabling it later picks up only what arrived while it was off.

  **Removing** a folder throws that record away. If you add the same path again afterwards, Vowen
  re-snapshots it from scratch. Nothing already in the folder is backfilled, but anything that arrived
  while the folder was removed is now treated as pre-existing and will never be processed.
</Warning>

Neither action touches transcriptions or notes that have already been created.

## Troubleshooting

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Nothing happens when I drop a file in">
    Check the file extension is on the supported list, that the file is directly in the folder rather
    than in a subfolder, and that the folder's checkbox is ticked. A very large file being copied
    across a slow network can also still be inside its stability window.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The folder row says Folder not found">
    The path no longer exists, usually because an external drive is unmounted or the folder was
    renamed. Vowen skips it silently until the path is back. Remove the folder and add it again if
    the path has permanently changed.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="I added a folder full of recordings and nothing was transcribed">
    That is the intended behavior. Existing files are seeded as already handled the first time the
    folder is registered. Transcribe them manually, or move them out and back in.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A file failed and was never retried">
    Files are marked handled when they are queued, not when they succeed, so a failure does not loop
    forever on every scan. Retry it from the transcription entry or the note itself.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>