# Cachalot — full text > Record, transcribe and summarize Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls entirely on your Mac. No bot joins the call, no audio is uploaded. Free, no account needed. Version 0.4.0 (2026-09-05). Source: https://cachalot.app ## Facts - Platform: macOS 26 or later, Apple Silicon (M1 or later). There is no Windows, Linux, iOS or web version. - Price: free to use with no account. Pro is US$5 per month or US$99 once (lifetime). - Free plan keeps 3 meetings on the Mac; Pro keeps 100. Recording, transcription and notes are unlimited on both. - Languages: about 100 spoken languages for transcription, on the free plan too. The interface ships in 9 languages and the site in 33. - Capture: your microphone and the meeting app's audio are recorded as two separate tracks (Core Audio process taps), so "who said what" is structural rather than guessed by diarization. - Processing: transcription and meeting notes run on the Mac using Apple's on-device speech and language models, with Whisper large-v3-turbo for the high-accuracy mode and for languages Apple's engine does not cover. - Network: no audio, transcript or meeting note is uploaded. The product has no server that could receive them. Network access is used only for the update feed and, if you buy Pro, for Stripe billing. - No bot joins the meeting. Other participants see nothing and are not notified by Cachalot. - Meeting apps: works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex and any other app that plays audio, because it captures the system audio rather than integrating with each service. - Exports: Markdown, plain text, SRT, VTT, CSV and JSON. - Made by Jinbay Co., Ltd. (ジンベイ株式会社), Yokohama, Japan. Contact: info@jinbay.co.jp. - Site languages: the landing and pricing pages exist in 33 languages. The comparison pages and the industry pages are written in English, German and Japanese; other locales show the English text. Guides are not translated — each one is written in one language only. - Latest version: 0.4.0 (2026-09-05). ## Home page ### AI meeting notes that never leave your Mac. Cachalot records, transcribes and summarizes your Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls entirely on your Mac. No bot joins your call. No audio is ever uploaded. Your conversations stay yours. Free to use · No account required · macOS 26+, Apple Silicon ### Meeting bots are a privacy problem. Most AI notetakers join your call as a visible bot and stream everyone’s voice to their servers. That makes clients uncomfortable, violates many companies’ policies, and puts confidential conversations in someone else’s cloud. Cachalot takes the opposite approach: everything happens locally, on hardware you own. ### Everything a notetaker should do. Nothing it shouldn’t. Built on Apple’s on-device speech and language models, plus Whisper for maximum accuracy. - **No bots in your meetings** — Captures system audio directly on your Mac. Nothing joins the call, no "recording bot" appears, and it works with any meeting app — Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, Slack huddles. - **Exact speaker separation** — Your microphone and the other participants are recorded on two separate channels, so "who said what" is structurally exact — not guessed by an algorithm. - **On-device transcription** — Choose Apple’s fast built-in engine, or Whisper large-v3-turbo for maximum accuracy. Both run entirely on your Mac, across about 100 spoken languages. - **AI minutes, generated locally** — An on-device LLM turns the transcript into structured minutes: overview, topics, decisions and action items — ready seconds after you hang up. - **Automatic meeting detection** — Cachalot notices when a meeting app starts using your microphone and offers to record with a single click. Never forget to hit record again. - **Private by architecture** — Audio never leaves your Mac. Not "we promise not to look" — the app has no server to send it to. Recordings are plain files in your Documents folder. ### How it works 1. **Join your meeting as usual** — When a meeting app starts using your mic, a small panel appears at the top of your screen. One click starts recording — or start manually from the menu bar. 2. **Record and transcribe locally** — Your voice and the other side are captured on separate channels and transcribed on-device, in the standard or high-accuracy Whisper mode. 3. **Get your minutes instantly** — Seconds after the call ends, structured minutes with decisions and action items are ready — saved as local files you fully own and can search, edit or delete. ### Your conversations are not our product. Cloud notetakers monetize access to your meetings. Cachalot is designed so that we couldn’t read them even if we wanted to. - **Zero audio upload** — Recording, transcription and summarization all run on your Mac’s Neural Engine. The only network access is a one-time, optional Whisper model download. - **Works offline** — On a plane, in a secure facility, on flaky Wi-Fi — everything keeps working, because nothing depends on a server. - **Files you own** — Recordings and transcripts are ordinary files in ~/Documents. Back them up, move them, or delete them — no vendor lock-in, no data retention policy to worry about. ### Frequently asked questions **Do other participants see a bot or get notified?** No. Cachalot records the audio playing on your own Mac, so nothing joins the meeting and no bot appears. You are responsible for complying with recording-consent laws in your region — we recommend letting participants know you’re recording. **Which meeting apps does it work with?** Any app that plays audio on your Mac: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack huddles, Discord, and even browser-based calls. There is no per-app integration to configure. **Is it free?** Yes — recording, transcription and AI meeting notes are free, with no account and no time limit. The free plan keeps 3 meetings on your Mac; Pro ($5/month or $99 once) raises that to 100 and adds high-accuracy transcription and note templates. See Pricing for the details. **What are the system requirements?** An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) running macOS 26 Tahoe or newer. The on-device AI models are the reason for these requirements. **How accurate is the transcription?** The standard mode uses Apple’s latest on-device speech engine and is fast and light. The high-accuracy mode uses Whisper large-v3-turbo, one of the strongest open speech models available, downloaded once (~1.6 GB) and then fully offline. **Where is my data stored?** In ~/Documents/Cachalot on your Mac, as ordinary audio and text files organized by date. Nothing is stored anywhere else. ## Pricing Recording, on-device transcription and AI meeting notes are free — no account, no trial, no time limit. Pro simply raises how many meetings stay on your Mac, and adds a few extras. ### Free — $0 (No account, no sign-in) - Unlimited recording, transcription and AI meeting notes - About 100 spoken languages, all on your Mac - Automatic meeting detection and exact speaker separation - Export to Markdown, text, SRT, VTT, CSV and JSON - 3 meetings kept on your Mac ### Pro — $5 / month (or $99 once — yours for good) - 100 meetings kept, with pinning - Whisper large-v3-turbo high-accuracy mode - Note templates (sales, interview, 1:1) and custom instructions - Everything in Free **Do I need an account?** Not for the free plan. Download it, allow two permissions, and record — there is nothing to sign up for. An account only exists once you upgrade, because a payment needs one. **What happens at the third meeting?** Nothing is deleted. New recordings stop starting and the upgrade is offered. Delete an old meeting to free a slot, or go Pro — your recordings are ordinary files in ~/Documents that you can move or back up yourself. **Is my language included in the free plan?** Yes. Ten languages use Apple’s built-in engine; for the rest Cachalot switches to the Whisper model — about 100 languages in total, on the free plan too. Pro’s high-accuracy mode buys better accuracy in the languages Apple already covers, not access to your own language. ## How it differs from other notetakers ### Cachalot vs Otter.ai Otter.ai transcribes in the cloud and can join calls as a bot. Cachalot records, transcribes and summarizes entirely on your Mac — no bot, no upload. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / Otter.ai: Can join meetings as a visible assistant so others see it - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / Otter.ai: Uploaded to Otter's servers for transcription - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / Otter.ai: No — transcription needs the service - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / Otter.ai: Web, iOS, Android, meeting-platform integrations When Otter.ai is the better choice: you need a shared team workspace where everyone browses the same transcripts in a browser you work on Windows, Linux, or mostly from a phone you want the transcript to appear for everyone in the call, not just for you ### Cachalot vs Granola Granola is a Mac notetaker with no meeting bot, but transcription and AI notes still run in the cloud. Cachalot keeps the whole pipeline on your Mac. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / Granola: No bot — it captures the audio playing on your Mac - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / Granola: Sent to Granola's cloud for transcription and AI notes - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / Granola: No — the notes are generated server-side - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / Granola: macOS (and its own cloud) When Granola is the better choice: you want notes synced across devices and shared with a team through a hosted workspace you prefer a frontier cloud model's writing quality over an on-device model you are not constrained by a policy that forbids sending meeting audio to third parties ### Cachalot vs jamie jamie records without a bot and transcribes on EU servers, deleting the audio afterwards. Cachalot never uploads it, because it has no server to upload to. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / jamie: No bot — it records the audio playing on your computer - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / jamie: Uploaded to servers in the EU, transcribed there, then deleted - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / jamie: No — the transcript and the notes are produced server-side - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / jamie: macOS, Windows, iOS, Android (and its EU cloud) When jamie is the better choice: you need the same notes on Windows, an iPhone or an Android phone, not only on a Mac your requirement is EU data residency with a processing agreement, rather than no external processing at all several people share one microphone in a room and you want them told apart — Cachalot separates your mic from the call, not voices within the room ### Cachalot vs Fireflies.ai Fireflies sends a notetaker bot into your calls and stores recordings in its cloud. Cachalot records your own Mac's audio and never uploads it. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / Fireflies.ai: Yes — a notetaker joins the call and appears to participants - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / Fireflies.ai: Stored and processed in Fireflies' cloud - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / Fireflies.ai: No - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / Fireflies.ai: Web and meeting-platform integrations When Fireflies.ai is the better choice: you want CRM and workflow integrations that write meeting data into other systems your team needs one searchable archive of every call across the company meetings must be captured even when nobody from your side attends on a Mac ### Cachalot vs tl;dv tl;dv records Zoom, Meet and Teams with a notetaker in the call or from the desktop, and keeps the library in its cloud. Cachalot keeps everything on your Mac. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / tl;dv: Yes for Zoom, Meet and Teams — its notetaker appears in the attendee list. The desktop app can also record without one - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / tl;dv: Recorded into tl;dv's cloud and stored there (EU hosting available) - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / tl;dv: No - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / tl;dv: Web, macOS, Windows, and meeting-platform integrations When tl;dv is the better choice: your team wants one shared library of recorded calls, with video, clips and timestamps meeting data has to land in a CRM or another tool automatically calls must be recorded even when you are not the one attending ### Cachalot vs Notta Notta's desktop recorder captures without a bot, but the transcript is produced in its cloud workspace. Cachalot transcribes and summarizes on the Mac itself. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / Notta: No bot in the desktop recorder — it captures your device's audio - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / Notta: Uploaded to your Notta workspace, where it is transcribed and summarized - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / Notta: Recording works offline; the transcript needs the service - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / Notta: Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android When Notta is the better choice: you want the same transcripts on a phone and on Windows, not only on one Mac you need to transcribe audio or video files you already have — Cachalot only records what is happening live your team needs one shared, searchable workspace that everyone can open in a browser ### Cachalot vs Fathom Fathom records and summarizes calls in the cloud with a bot in the meeting. Cachalot does the same job locally on Apple Silicon, with no upload. - Bot in the meeting — Cachalot: no bot ever joins / Fathom: Yes — it joins supported meetings as a participant - Where the audio goes — Cachalot: stays on the Mac / Fathom: Uploaded for transcription and summarization - Offline — Cachalot: works with no network / Fathom: No - Runs on — Cachalot: your Mac / Fathom: Web and desktop clients tied to supported platforms When Fathom is the better choice: you rely on a specific meeting platform's deep integration (in-call highlights, shared clips) your team wants a hosted library of calls with permissions and sharing built in you are on Windows ## Releases ### 0.4.0 (2026-09-05) — Recordings get 26× smaller - Recordings are now stored as AAC instead of uncompressed audio. An hour of meeting took about 2 GB and now takes about 80 MB — the same recording, 26 times smaller. - Transcription is unaffected: on a real 12-minute meeting the transcript matched the uncompressed one 99.6% character for character, and the differences were punctuation. - Recordings made with earlier versions still play and transcribe as before. They stay in the old format, so only new meetings get the smaller files. ### 0.3.3 (2026-08-29) — Starts every time - Fixed a startup hang: if you were signed in, Cachalot could come up with no menu bar icon at all and stay that way, because it was waiting on the keychain from the main thread. The keychain is now read off it. ### 0.3.2 (2026-08-24) — You can tell it worked - Copying — the intro from “Tell a colleague…”, a transcript, or a set of meeting notes — now confirms itself on screen. It used to copy silently, which looked like nothing had happened. - If Cachalot is somewhere it cannot update itself from, such as straight off the disk image, it now says so and tells you to move it to Applications instead of failing with a generic updater error. ### 0.3.1 (2026-08-24) — Our own face - The app icon is now Cachalot's own mark, matching the site and the browser tab. Earlier builds shipped the developer's company logo by mistake. ### 0.3.0 (2026-08-24) — Pass it on - New “Tell a colleague…” item in the menu bar copies a short intro plus the link, ready to paste into chat or email. - The updater now shows what changed before you approve an update, with a link to this page. ### 0.2.0 (2026-08-24) — Now speaks your language - The interface follows your Mac's language and ships in 9 languages (English, 日本語, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, 한국어, Português, 简体中文). - Meeting language is a separate setting from the interface language. - About 100 spoken languages can be transcribed — on the free plan too. Apple's built-in engine covers 10; the rest fall back to the Whisper model automatically. - Meeting notes are written in the language of the meeting, with a note on the recording when the on-device model has to fall back to English. - Password reset by email, straight from the login screen. - Account deletion from the app, which also cancels any active subscription immediately. - Speaker labels are stored language-independently, so switching interface language no longer mismatches older recordings. - Optional, opt-in anonymous usage statistics — event names and the week only, with no device or install identifier. - Exports and copied notes carry a one-line “Notes by Cachalot” credit (Pro can turn it off). ### 0.1.0 (2026-08-24) — First public release - Records your microphone and the other side's system audio on separate channels, so who-said-what is structurally exact. - On-device transcription with Apple's speech engine, or Whisper large-v3-turbo for higher accuracy. - Structured meeting notes from an on-device LLM: overview, topics and next steps. - Automatic meeting detection when a meeting app starts using your microphone. - Glossary and meeting-note templates. - Automatic updates, signed and notarized. ## Guides - [Bot-free is not the same as local](https://cachalot.app/en/blog/bot-free-is-not-local) — Most notetakers that promise no bot still upload your call. Here are the three places audio leaves the machine, and a two-minute test that settles which one you are using. - [Does Zoom tell people you are recording?](https://cachalot.app/en/blog/does-zoom-notify-recording) — Zoom's own recording always shows, in three places at once. Recording the audio on your own machine does not. Here is what each one does, and where consent law actually lands. - [Zoom の録音は相手に通知される? 仕組みと、通知されない録音の注意点](https://cachalot.app/ja/blog/does-zoom-notify-recording) (written in Japanese) — Zoom の標準機能で録画すると、相手には必ず分かります。通知されない録音方法も存在しますが、通知されないことと黙って録ってよいことは別です。仕組みと実務での扱い方をまとめました。 - [How to record both sides of a call on a Mac](https://cachalot.app/en/blog/record-both-sides-on-mac) — QuickTime and the Screenshot toolbar only capture your microphone. Here are the three ways to get the other side as well, and why two separate tracks beat one mixed file. - [Mac で相手の声も録音する方法 — 画面収録で相手の声が入らない理由](https://cachalot.app/ja/blog/record-both-sides-on-mac) (written in Japanese) — QuickTime や画面収録ではマイクの音しか入りません。macOS がアプリの音をどう扱っているか、仮想オーディオドライバに頼らず相手側を録る方法、そして自分と相手を別トラックで録る利点を説明します。 - [Meetings lokal auf dem Mac transkribieren – ohne Cloud, ohne Bot](https://cachalot.app/de/blog/meetings-lokal-transkribieren-mac) (written in German) — Was „lokal“ bei Meeting-Tools tatsächlich bedeutet, an welchen drei Stellen Audio trotzdem hochgeladen wird, und wie du das in zwei Minuten selbst prüfst. - [Systemton auf dem Mac aufnehmen – die Gegenseite, ohne Zusatztreiber](https://cachalot.app/de/blog/systemton-aufnehmen-mac) (written in German) — Warum Bildschirmaufnahme und QuickTime nur dein Mikrofon mitschneiden, was Core Audio Process Taps daran ändern, und warum zwei getrennte Spuren besser sind als eine gemischte. - [Recording the other side of a call on macOS, without a bot](https://cachalot.app/en/blog/record-system-audio-macos) — How Core Audio process taps let a Mac app capture system audio, the aggregate-device dance around them, and four things that broke on the way.