Voice Memo Clip Player

A Rust application that randomly selects a 30-second clip from your Apple Voice Memos library and plays it in VLC.

Features

• 🎲 Random Selection - Picks a random voice memo from your entire library
• ✂️ Clipping - Extracts a random 30-second segment from the recording
• 📅 Metadata Preservation - Embeds the original recording date in clip metadata
• 🎬 Playback - Opens the audio clip in VLC for immediate listening
• 🔒 Read-Only - Never modifies your original Voice Memos

Requirements

Software Dependencies

• macOS Sonoma (14) or later - Uses the new Voice Memos storage location
• Rust - Install from rustup.rs
• ffmpeg - Install via Homebrew: brew install ffmpeg
• VLC.app - Download from videolan.org

System Permissions

The app requires Full Disk Access to read Voice Memos:

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access
2. Click the lock icon and authenticate
3. Click + and add your terminal app (Terminal.app, iTerm2, etc.)
4. Restart your terminal completely

Usage

Basic Usage

Simply run the application:

cargo run --release

What Happens

1. The app scans your Voice Memos library
2. Randomly selects a memo longer than 30 seconds
3. Picks a random 30-second segment from that memo
4. Extracts the clip with metadata
5. Opens the audio clip in VLC

How It Works

1. Database Access

The app reads the Voice Memos SQLite database located at:

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.VoiceMemos.shared/Recordings/CloudRecordings.db

It opens the database in read-only mode to prevent any modifications.

2. Audio Extraction

Uses ffmpeg to extract the 30-second clip with metadata:

ffmpeg -ss <start_time> -i <source> -t 30 -c copy -metadata comment="Original recording date: ..." audio_clip.m4a

3. Playback

Opens the audio clip in VLC using macOS's open command.

File Locations

Input (Read-Only)

• Database: ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.VoiceMemos.shared/Recordings/CloudRecordings.db
• Audio files: ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.VoiceMemos.shared/Recordings/*.m4a

Output (Temporary)

• Clip files: /tmp/voice_memo_clip_<pid>.m4a
• Files persist until manual deletion or system reboot

Technical Details

Database Schema

The app queries the ZCLOUDRECORDING table:

• ZENCRYPTEDTITLE - Recording title (encrypted)
• ZCUSTOMLABEL - Custom label (fallback)
• ZDATE - Core Data timestamp (seconds since Jan 1, 2001)
• ZDURATION - Duration in seconds
• ZPATH - Relative path to .m4a file

Safety & Privacy

• Database opened with SQLITE_OPEN_READ_ONLY flag
• Audio files opened with File::open (read-only by default)
• No modifications to Voice Memos library
• All output files created in temporary directories
• All data stays on your computer - nothing is uploaded anywhere
• Voice memos are never modified - the app only reads them
• Temporary clip files remain local in /tmp
• Read-only database access - guaranteed by SQLite flags