External sources

1. What it is

An external source is a place outside pepito where audio files show up, and where pepito looks for them to offer you their import. Settings, External Sources, has two kinds: watched folders (any number of folders on this Mac, iCloud Drive or a USB drive) and the Bluetooth recorder (the FOCASE REC voice recorder). Each source has its own switch and its own options. They belong to this Mac, not to your recordings folder. The feature is free and needs no license.

pepito detects files only while it runs and the Mac is awake. When it launches, it looks at what arrived in the meantime. Nothing is detected in the background when pepito is not running.

Detection is automatic, import is not. A detected file shows in a notification, and in the "Detected Files (n)…" line of the menu. Clicking opens the Import audio sheet, filled in and naming the source, with three outcomes: Import creates the recording, Later leaves the file detected, Ignore stops pepito from offering it again (the source has an "Offer Ignored Files Again" button). Nothing enters pepito without your click on Import. Once imported, the file is a recording like any other, transcribed and summarized with your settings. While a recording is in progress, notifications wait until you stop it.

2. Watched folders

You add a folder with "Add Folder…" in the Watched Folders group. pepito looks at the files directly in the folder, not in its subfolders. It admits .m4a, .mp3 and .wav files; a WAV file is converted to M4A when imported. This is an exception to the URL and AppleScript imports (which still refuse WAV). pepito refuses a folder that is, contains or lies inside its own recordings folder, or that another source already watches.

A file is offered once it is complete. pepito waits until the file opens as audio with a duration and its size and date have not changed for 30 seconds, so a file still being copied or recorded is not offered half-written. An iCloud Drive file that is not downloaded to this Mac yet is offered all the same; pepito downloads it when you click Import or Ignore, and the sheet shows the progress.

What pepito reads and keeps. To recognize a file it already imported or ignored, pepito reads every audio file of the folder, on this Mac, including the ones you do not import. It keeps, in your recordings folder, a fingerprint of each file you import or ignore (a SHA-256 of its content), but neither its name nor its audio. Renaming or moving a file does not make it new; changing its content does.

pepito changes and deletes nothing in a watched folder, except with the folder's own option "Move the source file to the Trash after a successful import". That option is off by default; the file goes to the macOS Trash as soon as the recording is created, and stays in place if the import fails or if the Trash refuses it (a network volume, for instance).

A folder on an unplugged drive shows "Volume not connected" and resumes by itself, catching up on what changed, when the drive comes back. A folder that disappeared shows "Folder not found": put it back, then click Try Again, or remove the source with the − button.

3. Bluetooth recorders

The only model in this version is the FOCASE REC. You designate the device: turn the source on, then press the "waves" button briefly on the device while the tab is listening. pepito does not drive the device's recording; it only downloads what the device already holds.

A sync. The device is only reachable for about three minutes after that button press. pepito calls this connection a sync (Séance in French): it sets the device's clock, replays the deletions waiting (see below), lists the recordings, downloads each one pepito does not know yet, converts it to M4A and disconnects. The progress shows on the source's line and on the menu line. A sync does not start while a recording is in progress: pepito tells you so at once. If the device is still reachable when the recording stops, the sync starts on its own; otherwise, press the button again.

Local copy. The downloaded recordings are kept as M4A copies on this Mac (~/Library/Application Support/pepito/External Sources/focaseRec/), outside your recordings folder, and become detected files. A copy is erased once the recording is imported or ignored. Turning the source off or "Forget This Device" erases the copies.

Deleting from the device. The option "Delete the recording from the device after a successful import" is off by default. When on, the deletion is permanent and happens at the next sync, not at the import. It also erases the original WAV recording, which is only reachable over USB: only the copy imported into pepito remains. Turning the option off cancels the pending deletions.

Privacy. While the source is on, pepito listens for nearby Bluetooth devices to recognize the one you designated, and keeps nothing else from them. The FOCASE REC sends its recordings over Bluetooth without encryption: during a sync, a device a few meters away could pick them up. pepito deletes nothing from the device without the option above. pepito does not use Bluetooth at all until you turn a Bluetooth source on; macOS may then ask for the Bluetooth permission.

USB: not recommended. Over USB the device shows a volume holding its recordings as WAV and Opus files. You can add it as a watched folder, but we advise against it: the volume is often unmounted, the Opus twin files are not admitted, and the same recording imported through USB and through Bluetooth is not recognized as one. To import the WAV, which has the better quality, use File, Import audio file… by hand.

4. Memory shared between Macs

What you imported or ignored is remembered in your recordings folder (_data/external-sources.json), not on the Mac, so a file you imported is not offered again, even if you delete its recording. If you share the recordings folder between Macs, they share this memory: a file ignored on one Mac is ignored on all of them. The same goes for the deletions waiting on the device: if the option is on on one Mac, the deletion can happen at a sync from the other Mac, even one where the option is off. Sources themselves (which folders, which device) are settings of each Mac.

If this file cannot be read, or was written by a newer pepito, every source is suspended and says so; nothing is offered until it is readable again. Do not edit it by hand.

5. What the recording keeps

A recording imported from a source has an externalSource block in its recording.json. It is informative: pepito does not read it back. Recordings that did not come from a source have no such block.

The block is returned as is by the MCP tool get_recording (null when absent), and the MCP server's instructions describe it. Your commands see no new variable: the import counts as an audio import, so the post-processing command receives PEPITO_REASON = import_audio. The recording has no title at the import, like any audio import.