Meeting transcription tools like Otter.ai and Fireflies work by sending a bot to join your call. Your colleagues see "Otter.ai has joined" — and your entire conversation is uploaded to third-party servers.
There's a better way: capture the audio locally on your Mac and transcribe it on-device.
Why Local Meeting Transcription?
- No bot — Nobody sees a recording notification or bot participant
- Privacy — Audio stays on your device, never uploaded to the cloud
- No subscription — One-time purchase instead of monthly fees
- Works with any platform — Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, FaceTime, Discord, and more
How It Works with VoxBee
VoxBee captures system audio (what comes through your speakers/headphones) and your microphone simultaneously using macOS ScreenCaptureKit. Here's how:
- Join your meeting normally in any app
- VoxBee detects the meeting automatically (Zoom, Meet, Teams, FaceTime) and asks if you want to record
- Click "Start Recording" — VoxBee captures both system audio and your mic
- When the meeting ends, VoxBee transcribes everything locally using Whisper AI
- Optionally, send the transcript to OpenAI, Anthropic, or Ollama for a structured summary with key decisions, action items, and follow-ups
What You Get
After transcription, VoxBee saves everything to ~/Documents/VoxBee/Meetings/:
- Full transcript — Timestamped text of the entire meeting
- AI summary (optional) — Key decisions, action items, and follow-ups in Markdown
- Audio recording — The original audio file for reference
All files are plain text and Markdown — they work with Obsidian, Notion, and any other note-taking tool.
Automatic Meeting Detection
VoxBee monitors your Mac's microphone usage and detects when a meeting app activates it. It recognizes Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet (in browsers), FaceTime, and Webex — and shows a notification asking if you want to record.
Privacy by Design
Everything stays local:
- Audio is captured and stored on your Mac
- Transcription runs on-device using Whisper AI
- AI summaries are optional — you choose the provider (or use local Ollama)
- No account, no cloud storage, no data collection
Getting Started
Download VoxBee and grant Microphone and Screen Recording permissions. The next time you join a Zoom or Meet call, VoxBee will ask if you want to record. Try it free for 14 days.