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Installation & dependencies

Scribe is a Python package distributed on PyPI as scribe-cli (the -cli suffix disambiguates it from an unrelated package). It runs on Linux (X11 and Wayland), macOS, and Windows; on Android it works under Termux for clipboard / terminal output.

System dependencies

Scribe records audio via PortAudio (through sounddevice) and reads / writes the clipboard via xclip on Linux. On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install portaudio19-dev xclip

On macOS use Homebrew:

brew install portaudio

On Windows there are no system packages to install: sounddevice bundles PortAudio in its wheel and the clipboard uses the native Windows API, so neither portaudio19-dev nor xclip apply. See the Windows quickstart below.

Python package

The simplest install pulls every optional dependency:

pip install scribe-cli[all]

For local development from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/perrette/scribe.git
cd scribe
pip install -e .[all]

Pick-and-choose extras

If you don't want everything, scribe-cli ships granular extras matching the four backends and the tray UI:

Extra Pulls in Needed for
[whisper] faster-whisper local Whisper backend
[vosk] vosk local Vosk backend (streaming)
[openai] openai, soundfile OpenAI cloud backend (incl. realtime)
[groq] openai, soundfile Groq cloud backend
[keyboard] pynput back-compat only — pynput is a base dep now
[app] PyGObject (Linux only) the Linux AppIndicator tray binding
[all] every backend + Linux tray binding one-shot setup

pynput and pystray are base dependencies. The default run uses the keyboard typer and the system-tray app, so both ship with the plain pip install scribe-cli — you do not need [keyboard] or [app] for the standard experience. [app] now only adds the Linux-only PyGObject AppIndicator binding (skipped automatically on Windows/macOS via a sys_platform == 'linux' marker, since it needs GTK and won't pip-install elsewhere).

You need at least one backend extra (or none if you only plan to use cloud backends and already have the openai package). The groq backend reuses the openai client, so [openai] covers both.

Windows

Windows 11 is tested and working on Python 3.14 (64-bit). Every dependency — onnxruntime, faster-whisper/ctranslate2, pystray/Pillow, pynput — resolves a ready-made win_amd64 wheel, so there is no build toolchain to install and no need to downgrade Python.

From PowerShell:

py -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
# If activation is blocked by the execution policy, run once:
#   Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned
pip install -e .[whisper]      # or [all], or a cloud backend like [openai]
scribe

That's the whole setup. There are no system packages to install (apt/portaudio19-dev/xclip are Linux-only) and nothing to create by hand — earlier builds needed a manual C:\tmp folder, which is no longer the case.

  • Tray icon: appears under the taskbar overflow arrow (^) by default; pin it via Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → Other system tray icons. A single click on the icon starts recording.
  • Microphone: if recording fails, enable Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone → "Let desktop apps access your microphone".

Ubuntu / GNOME tray dependencies

The tray icon needs system libraries for the AppIndicator stack:

sudo apt install libcairo-dev libgirepository1.0-dev gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1
pip install PyGObject pystray

These come for free with [all] or [app], but the apt packages must be installed first so PyGObject can compile.

Keyboard injection backends

The Python pynput package is the default typer and is pulled in by [keyboard] / [all]. The other typer backends (eitype, wtype, ydotool) are OS-level binaries — see output.md for when you need them and how to install each.

Model cache

Local backends (Vosk, Whisper) download their model files on first use to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/<backend> (defaults to $HOME/.cache/<backend>). Override with --download-folder-vosk / --download-folder-whisper.