Nothing joins your call
Meeting notes. Without a bot in the room.
Notey records your microphone and the sound your Mac is playing as two separate tracks, and transcribes both on the machine. Nobody has to approve a participant they did not invite.
Apple Silicon · signed and notarized by Apple · free to start, no account needed
A demonstration of Notey recording a meeting. Two waveforms move independently: one for your microphone, labelled You, and one for the sound the Mac is playing, labelled Them. The transcript below builds itself as they move, attributing each line to whichever track is speaking. A red dot and an elapsed timer show that a recording is in progress.
The difference
No bot means no permission slip
The awkward part of every other notetaker is the moment a stranger appears in the participant list.
A video call with three participants. A fourth tile, a notetaker bot, tries to join; a prompt asks whether to admit it, someone asks who it is, and it is denied. Nothing was recorded.
The same call with the same three participants. Nothing joins. Instead, Notey's floating button on your own Mac says the call has started and asks whether to record; you allow it, and a red dot with an elapsed timer appears — visible to you, not to the call.
Notetakers that dial in
- ✕ A bot appears in the call as a participant
- ✕ Everyone sees it and someone always asks
- ✕ Your audio is uploaded to be transcribed
- ✕ Blocked outright by some companies' policies
- ✕ Nothing to record if it fails to join
Notey
- ✓ Nothing joins. There is no extra participant
- ✓ Works on any call, and on things that aren't calls
- ✓ Audio stays on your Mac
- ✓ Nothing to approve, so nothing to refuse
- ✓ Records whatever your Mac can hear
How it works
Two tracks, one machine
Most notetakers dial a bot into your call and upload the audio. Notey listens the way your Mac already hears, and does the work on the device.
No bot, no stranger. There is nothing to admit to the call and nothing for the other side to notice.
No Screen Recording permission. System audio comes from a Core Audio process tap, which needs none. Notey cannot see your screen.
Who spoke, without voiceprints. Two tracks is why the transcript knows your side from theirs. Nobody's voice has to be learned.
In the app
What you see while it records
Pinned to the real controls. Hover or focus a marker to read it; the floating button is small on screen, so it gets a closer look.
- The red dot and the elapsed time. The legal recording indicator: on screen whenever audio is being kept, and never restyled away.
- Two tracks, drawn separately: your microphone, and what the Mac is playing.
- "You" and "Them" come from which track the audio arrived on. Name either side for this meeting; move a line if your speakers put someone on your side.
- A phrase the recogniser is still revising is shown lighter until it settles. Words arrive as they are spoken.
- Everything on this Mac. The status bar says where your meetings live, and it is the disk.
- A call starts and the floating button says so. It is hearing the call; nothing is saved until you press Allow.
- While recording: the same red dot and the same clock as the window and the menu bar, with Stop beside them.
- The call ends and it offers to finish. Keep recording, or let the countdown run out. The countdown is said in words, so nothing else on the button looks like the clock.
Features
What it does, as it actually behaves
Recording and reading back need no account and no network. The writing is the part with a bill, and the only part that sends anything.
Record
- Two tracks, kept separate. Your microphone on one, what your Mac plays on the other — Zoom, Meet, Teams, a phone on speaker, a video. Nothing joins the call.
- Starts and stops with the call. When a call begins, the floating button says so and offers to record. When it ends, it offers to finish — keep recording, or let the countdown run out.
- Arm the next call. Decide now to record the next call you join. The arm covers one call and lapses in an hour if none starts.
- The indicator. A red dot and the elapsed time in the window, in the menu bar and on the floating button, for as long as audio is being kept.
- Never a silent half-meeting. If one side stops arriving, the meeting is marked incomplete and says why, rather than being passed off as whole.
Transcript
- Transcribed on your Mac. Apple's on-device speech recognition, live. Words appear as they are spoken; a phrase still being revised is shown lighter until it settles.
- Your side and theirs. Told apart by which track the audio arrived on — no voice has to be learned. Give either side a name for that meeting. If your speakers put someone on your side, move the line.
- Several people on the other side. When a recording stops, a pass tells the voices apart. Mark the line where somebody starts speaking and they are credited from there.
- Paragraphs, not fragments. Consecutive lines from one person read as a paragraph; a silence of two and a half seconds breaks it. Any paragraph can be shown as the lines it is made of.
- Every line plays. Click a timestamp to hear that moment. ⌘K searches every meeting by time or by what was said.
Notes
- Summarise. A title, a summary and the action items — who agreed to do what. If nobody committed to anything, it says so rather than inventing items.
- Minutes. What was discussed and decided, topic by topic and in order, each one marked with where it began in the recording and every agreement called out.
- Tough questions. The questions worth going back and asking, grouped by what is at risk, each one saying why it matters.
- Where you differed. Each point the two sides did not agree on — what you said, what they said, and how it ended.
- Follow-up email. A message to the other side confirming what was agreed and asking for what is still open, ready to send once you add their name.
- Only when asked, and labelled. Each kind is written when you ask for it and counts as one read of the transcript against the month's hours. Leave write-ups on and a finished meeting is summarised as it ends. Everything the AI wrote is labelled; edit it and it is marked as edited by you.
Ask Notey
- Ask about the open meeting. "What did we decide about the deadline?" "Who agreed to send the follow-up?" "What was left open?" The answer is drawn from that meeting's transcript.
- It says when it doesn't know. If the transcript does not cover the question, the answer says so plainly rather than guessing.
- The conversation stays with the meeting. Come back later, even after quitting, and the questions and answers are still there in order. Clear them whenever you like.
- Text only. The question and the transcript's text are what is sent. The recording stays where it is.
People
- Off until you turn it on. Recognising people across meetings does nothing until you switch it on. The people it would learn are third parties who never installed Notey.
- A name, then a voice. When it is on, naming someone on the other side of a meeting saves their voice from that meeting. In a later meeting a similar voice is offered as a suggestion — labelled as one — and you accept or reject it. Notey never applies a name by itself.
- Listed, and forgettable. The People tab shows everyone remembered and which meetings contributed. "Forget this voice" removes them.
- Never in the clear. Voices stay on your Mac. They travel with encrypted backup only if you switch that on separately.
Calendar & projects
- Record from your calendar. Read-only access to the calendars on your Mac, or a Google Calendar you connect inside Notey. Tick the calendars that count.
- The rule is visible before it acts. Home shows the next meeting Notey will record, with Turn off one click away, and says on screen when a recording started and why. The scheduled end stops nothing — it records until you press Finish, because meetings overrun.
- Projects. File a meeting under a project from its header. Archive a project and every meeting stays; filter the list by project, or by which Mac recorded it.
Backup & export
- Encrypted backup. Each meeting is sealed on your Mac with a key derived from a recovery key that exists only on your Macs. Nothing uploads until you make that key. We hold ciphertext we cannot read.
- Audio stays out unless you say otherwise. Text and notes are backed up; the recording is included only if you switch that on. Lose the key and we cannot recover the backup — we never had it.
- A second Mac. Sign in, enter the key, restore. Your meetings are there.
- Export. Markdown, to the clipboard or to a file: the summary, any kind of note, the transcript, or everything. The labels for what the AI wrote and what you edited go with it.
Settings
- One screen that says what Notey is doing on this Mac. Which permissions it holds, that it never asks to record your screen, whether it recognises voices, whether it writes meetings up on its own, what leaves this Mac and when, and where your meetings are kept.
- Standing choices, findable. If you ever tick "Always record" for an app on the floating button, that choice is listed on the Account screen where it can be changed back to asking each time.
Pricing
Recording is free. You pay for the writing.
Recording, transcribing and searching cost us nothing — they happen on your Mac. Only the AI has a bill attached.
Free
Records, transcribes and searches on this Mac. No AI notes.
DownloadLight
For a normal week of meetings.
Start freeFull
Five hours of meetings every working day.
Start freeTeam
For a team that meets together.
Talk to usEvery paid plan starts with two free hours of AI notes, so you can see whether they're any good before paying.
Privacy
What actually leaves your Mac
Worth being exact about, because most of the answer is “nothing”.
Your recordings don't ever
Audio is written to your disk and read from there. There is no fallback, debug flag or crash report that sends it.
Transcript text does when you ask
When you ask for a summary or a note, or leave write-ups on for finished meetings. That's what the AI reads. The audio is never part of it.
Your email does if you sign up
If you make an account. You only need one for the AI features, and a usage record for billing counts minutes — no title, no participant, no text.
Nothing does without an account
Recording, transcribing and reading your meetings work with no account and no network at all.
Questions
Before you download
Do the other people need to install anything?
No. Notey records what your Mac can already hear. The people you're talking to do nothing, install nothing, and see no extra participant.
Do I have to tell people I'm recording?
That depends where you are, and in many places yes. Notey shows a red dot and a running timer whenever audio is being kept, and neither can be hidden or styled away — but whether to tell the room is your call to make, and the law's.
Does it record by itself?
Not without a choice you made first. When a call starts it offers, and you say yes or no. You can arm the next call ahead of time, which covers one call and lapses in an hour. You can tick “always record” for one app on that prompt, or choose calendars whose meetings it records — and in both cases the rule is shown before it acts and can be withdrawn where it is listed. Every recording it starts is announced on screen with Stop beside it.
Which apps does it work with?
Any of them. It captures the sound your Mac is playing, so Zoom, Meet, Teams, Slack huddles, a phone on speaker or a video all work the same way.
Does it need Screen Recording permission?
No, and it never asks. It uses a Core Audio process tap, which needs no such permission. It cannot see your screen.
What happens if I don't sign in?
Everything except the AI. You can record, transcribe, search and read your meetings back with no account and no network.
Intel Macs?
Not yet — this build is Apple Silicon only.
Try it on your next call
Free to start, no account, and nothing joins your meeting.
Download for MacApple Silicon · notarized by Apple · Notey 0.1.0