Transcripted

Private meeting notes that never leave your Mac. No bot joins your call.

Transcripted is a free, open-source Mac app for meeting notes and dictation. It transcribes on your Mac and saves plain Markdown files you own. You can search them, or let your AI read them.

Install with Homebrew · Interactive demo · transcripted.app

What it does

• Records any meeting. Zoom, Meet, Teams, FaceTime, or in person. It records your mic and your Mac's audio, so it hears both sides and nothing joins the call.
• Notices when a call starts. It offers to record. It can also remind you before meetings on your calendar.
• Knows who's talking. It splits the call by speaker. Name someone once, and it suggests their name the next time they talk. For in-person meetings, turn on People in the room in Settings.
• Types what you say. Tap a key, talk, and your words show up where you were typing.
• Transcribes files. Drop in an audio or video file you already have.
• Helps you write, if you want. Turn on Writing to save what you write, in every app or just the ones you pick, so your AI has it too. It can also suggest the next few words as you type. It's off until you turn it on.

Everything runs on your Mac. The speech models ship inside the app, so transcription works offline.

Your notes are plain files

Each meeting becomes a Markdown file with timestamps and speaker names. Here's one, trimmed:

---
title: "Product Review Sync"
capture_type: meeting
date: 2026-05-13
duration: "18:42"
transcription_engine: parakeet_local
sources: [mic, system_audio]
---

# Product Review Sync

Recorded May 13, 2026 at 3:05 PM  •  18 min, 42 sec  •  1864 words  •  27 turns

## Transcript

**00:00**  [Mic/You]
Let's capture launch feedback and decide what needs follow-up.

**00:18**  [System/Maya]
The main ask: no meeting bot, a clean transcript, and a summary for the issue.

By default, your notes are saved here:

~/Library/Application Support/Transcripted/captures/

To keep them somewhere else, like an Obsidian vault, change Capture library in Settings. Transcripted can move your files for you. The full format is in docs/capture-format.md.

Ask your AI

Your notes are plain files, so any AI tool that reads files can use them.

You:    What did I commit to in the product review?

Claude: From Product Review Sync (May 13):
        • Decide which launch feedback needs follow-up (00:00)
        • Make the action items clear before the next standup (02:10)
        Maya also asked for a summary for the issue (00:18).

For one-click setup, open Transcripted, go to Agent, and click Connect next to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor. For anything else, copy the ready-made prompt from the Something else row. It tells your AI where your notes are.

Connect adds Transcripted's MCP server to that app. MCP is an open standard that lets AI apps use outside tools. Transcripted's tools can search and read your notes, but they can't change or delete anything. Setup details are in docs/agent-connect.md.

Live meetings in Claude Code

The transcripted-live plugin brings the meeting you're recording into Claude Code while it happens. Claude gets the call as context with each message, a line above the prompt shows the meeting with Notes, a question aimed at you shows up with Draft answer, and when the call ends you get a wrap-up.

In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add r3dbars/transcripted
/plugin install transcripted-live@transcripted
/reload-plugins

Or from a terminal:

claude plugin marketplace add r3dbars/transcripted
claude plugin install transcripted-live@transcripted

It needs Transcripted 1.1.69 or later (that version ships the live helper) and Claude Code 2.1.287 or later. Live transcription runs on your Mac; the lines it passes to Claude go to Claude like anything else you send it. Details are in Tools/TranscriptedLive/README.md.

Requirements

• A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later)
• macOS 26 Tahoe or later
• About 700 MB download, speech models included
• No account

Autocomplete is optional. Turning it on downloads a 3.4 GB model. If your Mac has 16 GB of memory or more, you can pick a larger 5.6 GB model instead.

Install

1. Download Transcripted. It's signed, notarized by Apple, and updates itself.
2. Open the download and drag Transcripted into Applications.
3. Open it and allow the microphone. For meetings, also allow System Audio Recording so it can hear the other side of the call. Allow Accessibility so the keyboard shortcuts work and dictation can paste into other apps. Calendar is optional, for meeting reminders.
4. Click the menu bar icon and choose Record, or hold Right Option to dictate (tap it instead to keep listening, then tap again to paste).

Homebrew

brew tap r3dbars/transcripted https://github.com/r3dbars/transcripted
brew install --cask transcripted

Then do steps 3 and 4 above.

Privacy

• Your audio, transcripts, and voice profiles never leave your Mac.
• The app keeps meeting audio so you can replay any line. You can have it deleted after 7 or 30 days. Transcripts stay.
• The app sends anonymous crash reports (Sentry) and usage stats (PostHog). Both are on by default, and you can turn them off in Settings → Privacy. They never include audio, transcripts, meeting titles, speaker names, or file paths. The privacy contract has the full list.
• Writing never sends your text. It sends only counts, like how many suggestions you took, and which Writing options you chose. The same usage stats switch turns those off.
• Autocomplete uses the macOS Screen Recording permission to read the text on your screen, mostly the window you're typing in. That text stays in memory on your Mac and is never saved.
• If you connect a cloud AI like Claude, the notes it reads go to that AI's servers. Transcripted itself never uploads them.

Where everything is stored: docs/storage-paths.md.

FAQ

How is it different from Otter, Fireflies, or Granola? Otter and Fireflies are built around a bot that joins your calls, and they keep your meetings in their cloud. Granola skips the bot, but your meetings still go to the cloud. Transcripted does it all on your Mac, and it's free and open source. More comparisons, including local apps like MacWhisper and Meetily: transcripted.app/compare.

Does it write summaries? It saves the full transcript, not an AI summary. For a summary, decisions, or action items, ask your AI. It answers from your notes.

Does it work offline? Yes. Recording, transcription, and speaker labels need no internet. The app only goes online to check for updates, download optional models, and send the crash reports and usage stats above.

What languages does it understand? The default model, Parakeet V3, covers 25 European languages, English included. For others, pick a Whisper model in Settings → Transcription. It downloads once, then runs on your Mac too.

How accurate is it? Good for notes and search, but not perfect. Names and jargon are the usual misses. If it keeps mishearing a word, add a fix under Settings → Transcription → Corrections (for example, "okay ours" to "OKRs").

Do people know I'm recording? Only if you tell them. There's no bot, so the app doesn't notify anyone. Tell people before you record. In many places, the law requires their consent.

What does it cost? Nothing. No account, no subscription.

Is there a command-line tool? Yes, it ships inside the app. See the CLI instructions.

Uninstall

1. Quit Transcripted from the menu bar.
2. If you set up Writing, go to System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources and remove Transcripted.
3. Drag Transcripted out of Applications, or run brew uninstall --cask transcripted.
4. Delete the Transcripted Keyboard, if it's there: ~/Library/Input Methods/Transcripted Keyboard.app

Your meetings, dictations, and writing stay where they are. To also delete the Autocomplete model and Writing's data, remove these folders:

~/Library/Application Support/Transcripted/models/writing/
~/Library/Application Support/Transcripted/writing/

To remove everything, including voice profiles, delete ~/Library/Application Support/Transcripted/. That also deletes your notes if they're still in the default folder.

Build and contribute

It's a native Swift app. You need an Apple silicon Mac on macOS 26 or later with Xcode 26 or later.

bash build-deps.sh
bash build.sh --no-open
bash run-tests.sh

Start with CONTRIBUTING.md. Coding agents start with AGENTS.md. Security reports go to SECURITY.md.

If Transcripted is useful to you, a star helps other people find it. You can also sponsor the project.

License

MIT. See LICENSE. Bundled third-party code is listed in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.