Search your lecture recordings and notes when you study

Why lecture recordings go unused

Most students with access to lecture recordings rewatch very little of them. The problem is not motivation; it is navigation. You remember that the professor explained the difference between two ideas with a good example, sometime in week six or seven. The recording has no index, and the slides do not include the example.

Your notes, readings, photos of the whiteboard and old chat threads with an AI tutor are scattered across apps too. Studying means pulling all of that together around one topic.

How students manage it today

• Playing at 2x and skipping around. Works when you know roughly where to look.
• Platform captions or auto-transcripts. Helpful if your school provides them, but usually one video at a time with exact-word search.
• Note-taking apps with AI features. Convenient, and they may send recordings and notes to a cloud service, which some courses and schools do not allow for recorded class material.

Studying with a searchable semester

Slides shown in the video are searchable by their text, and so are photos of the whiteboard or a handout. That is often the fastest way to find the lecture where a formula first appeared.

1. Download the lecture recordings you are allowed to keep into one folder per course, and add it to MediaFind.
2. Add course terms and names to the names and terms list, so technical vocabulary transcribes correctly.
3. Search by meaning, for example “the example about supply shocks and prices,” and jump to the exact second in the right lecture.
4. Read the per-lecture summary and chapters to see what a session covered before you rewatch it.
5. Ask the on-device assistant a review question and follow the timestamps it cites back to the lecture.

Notes and AI chats next to the lectures

Memory brings in a folder of Markdown notes, such as an Obsidian vault, plus text files and ChatGPT or Claude data exports. Your notes turn up in the same searches as the lectures, and Ask can draw on both. Chats and notes don't count toward the free plan's 10 media files. The Obsidian guide covers the notes side in more detail.

A study session before the exam

Start from the syllabus or the review sheet. For each topic, search it by meaning and play the two or three strongest moments, then read the summary of the lecture they came from. When a concept still does not click, search for other ways it came up, such as a worked example in a later lecture or a question a classmate asked. Tag the moments you want to revisit and save the search, so the night before the exam you have a short list instead of twelve full recordings.

Transcripts export as Word, PDF or text if you prefer to annotate on paper or in your own notes app.

What the free plan covers

The free plan indexes up to 10 media files, with search by words, visuals, on-screen text and speakers, plus on-device Ask, summaries and chapters. That is enough for a few key lectures or to try it before an exam. A full semester across several courses will go past 10 files, and unlimited indexing is part of Pro.

The main app is for Macs with Apple Silicon on macOS 14 or later. Windows and Linux builds are in beta. A beta Android companion lets you search your library and read transcripts from your phone over Wi-Fi while the app runs on your computer.

Recording rules and privacy

Many schools limit whether students can record lectures or keep recordings, and some professors ask that recordings not be shared. Follow your school's policy and your instructor's terms, and do not record classmates without permission. MediaFind processes everything on your own computer, with no account and no upload, so your study library stays yours.

Frequently asked questions

Can I search inside lecture videos for a topic?

Yes. MediaFind transcribes each lecture on your computer and lets you search by meaning, so you find the explanation even if you don't remember the exact words.

Can it find a formula or term that was only on a slide?

Usually. Text shown on screen in videos and in photos is indexed, so a slide title or a printed term is searchable. Handwriting and small or blurry text are harder.

Is MediaFind free for students?

The free plan indexes up to 10 media files and includes search, Ask, summaries and chapters. Notes and chats don't count toward the limit. More files need Pro.

Does it need an internet connection?

Only once, to download the models. After that, transcription, search and Ask work offline.