Manual Fix a problem
I lost a dictation
Re-transcribe audio you already recorded, and recover a dictation you cancelled by mistake.
If a dictation produced nothing, errored, or you cancelled it by accident, the audio is often still on your PC — you can transcribe it again without saying it all over.
Re-transcribe from history
Open your history
Your recent dictations are listed in the control panel.
Find the one that failed
Failed items are marked, and a transcription that returned nothing appears as an empty entry rather than disappearing.
Choose Re-transcribe
The item's actions include Re-transcribe. It runs the saved audio through transcription again.
If the failure was caused by something you've since fixed — a model that wasn't downloaded yet, a cloud provider key that wasn't set up — re-transcribing is all you need.
What's kept, and for how long
These are the defaults on a new install. All of them are in Settings → Privacy & Data under System. Everything here stays on this PC.
| Setting | Default | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Data Retention | On | Transcriptions and audio are saved to your history. With this off, text is pasted but nothing is stored. |
| Audio Retention | 30 days | How long recordings stay on disk before they're deleted automatically. |
| Transcript Retention | Forever | Saved transcriptions aren't deleted on a schedule. |
| Save discarded dictations | Off | Whether a dictation you cancel with Escape is kept. |
Re-transcribing needs the audio, so it works for the last 30 days by default. You can raise or lower that, or turn audio storage off entirely, in the same place.
Recovering a dictation you cancelled
By default, pressing Escape during a dictation discards it and the audio is not kept — so a cancelled take is gone.
You can change that for next time. Switch on Save discarded dictations in Settings → Privacy & Data under System. Cancelled dictations then stay in your history and can be re-transcribed like any other.
It needs both Data Retention and Audio Retention to be on — the toggle stays disabled otherwise, because there'd be nowhere to keep the audio.
FAQ
Where are the audio files stored?
On your own PC, under %APPDATA%\neato-echo. The same settings section
shows Storage Usage — how many files and how much space — and Clear
All Audio if you want them gone now.
I turned history off and lost something.
With Data Retention off, transcriptions are pasted but never saved, so there's nothing to recover. The app says as much in the history view: "Data retention is off. Transcriptions and audio are not saved to history."
Can I get the raw text before AI cleanup?
Yes. Each history item offers View raw transcript and Copy raw transcript, which give you the transcription before any cleanup was applied.
Related
Still need help?
Write to [email protected] with your Windows version, your Neato Echo version (Settings → System), and what you were doing. A person reads every message.