Meeting notes that
never leave your Mac.
Abschrift records your meetings, transcribes them on the Apple Neural Engine, recognizes who said what — across meetings — and writes structured notes. No account. No cloud. No audio upload. Ever.
Your meetings are nobody's business.
Every other meeting notetaker uploads your calls to someone's servers. Abschrift was built the other way around: the models run on your Mac's Neural Engine, and the architecture makes cloud audio upload impossible — not just disabled.
- ✓Audio never leaves your Mac. Transcription and speaker recognition run locally on the Apple Neural Engine — fast, offline, private.
- ✓No account. No servers. No telemetry. Download, record, done. Your notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you own.
- ✓Notes are written on your Mac — by default. A built-in engine runs an open model picked for your hardware, downloaded once. Prefer Ollama or a cloud key? One click away, and only transcript text is ever sent.
- ✓Transcripts forget themselves. Transcripts auto-delete on a schedule you set. Notes are yours to keep.
Sensitive conversations shouldn't pile up.
A word-for-word transcript is a liability once the meeting is settled. Abschrift deletes transcripts automatically after a window you choose — the notes stay. Recordings go right after processing, and each meeting's frontmatter records its deletion date. How retention works
One click in. Notes out.
Everything between the record button and finished notes is automatic — a staged pipeline that survives crashes, resumes where it stopped, and never loses work.
- Record — your mic and the meeting's system audio, two clean tracks, any meeting app.
- Transcribe — on the Neural Engine, at roughly 40× real time.
- Separate & recognize speakers — who spoke, matched against the voices Abschrift already knows.
- Write notes — on this Mac by the built-in engine, or via a provider you choose.
- File & export — plain Markdown in your vault, and notes auto-exported wherever you want them (Pro).
Name a voice once. It stays named.
Turn on speaker recognition, and Abschrift remembers each voice. Rename “Speaker 2” once — your whole history carries the name, future meetings included. It's opt-in, because voice fingerprints are biometric data, and they never leave your Mac. How speaker profiles work
Word for word, with a name on every line.
Every meeting gets a timestamped, speaker-labeled transcript — your side from the mic, everyone else from the system audio, merged into one record. It's plain Markdown in a folder you own, searchable in-app. Keep recordings, and every timestamp is a play button.
One thing, done properly.
No dashboards, no calendar sync, no team features. Hit record, get a speaker-labeled transcript and notes that stand on their own.
No bots in your calls.
Abschrift records the audio your Mac plays and your microphone: Zoom, Meet, Teams, huddles, phone calls through the Mac. Nothing joins the meeting, and nobody sees a recording participant.
Notes that write themselves — locally.
By default, notes are written on your Mac by a built-in engine: an open model picked for your hardware, downloaded once. No Ollama, no API key, no account — and nothing leaves the machine, not even summaries. The pick isn't a guess: we benchmark open models on realistic meetings and ship the winners per hardware tier. Read the benchmark
Records both sides
Your mic and the meeting's system audio, captured as two clean tracks. Works with any meeting app — no bot joins your calls.
Knows who said what
Speakers are separated per meeting and recognized across meetings. Name someone once — the name flows back through your whole history.
Notes that stand alone
Summary, key points, decisions, action items, open questions, and a condensed discussion record. Written on this Mac, or by a provider you choose.
Plain files, yours
Markdown with frontmatter in ~/Abschrift. Full-text search in-app, a full CLI for scripts. No lock-in — it's a folder.
Talks to your AI agents
A built-in MCP server lets Claude and other agents list, search, and read your meetings — locally, over stdio. Pro
Meetings from anywhere
Drop a Zoom or Meet recording, a transcript, or notes into the window — it becomes a normal meeting, retention included. How import works
Fast. Really fast.
A 40-minute meeting transcribes in well under a minute on Apple Silicon — the Neural Engine runs at 40× real time.
Free to use. Pay once to go all in.
The free version is the full private pipeline — not a demo. Pro removes the monthly cap and adds the power features. One-time purchase, no subscription. You decide what it's worth to you.
- 5 meetings per month, full quality
- 100% on-device transcription
- Speaker recognition across meetings
- Fully-local notes with Ollama — or your own cloud API key
- Auto-deleting transcripts, full-text search
- Unlimited meetings
- MCP server for AI agents
- Auto-export
- Everything in Free
- Unlimited meetings
- MCP server — let Claude search & read your meeting archive
- Notes auto-export to a folder you choose
Payment and EU VAT handled by Polar.sh (merchant of record). 14-day refund policy. Your license key arrives by email. Activation takes one paste in Settings.
Fair questions.
What does Abschrift need to run?
A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) on macOS 14.2+. On first launch it downloads its speech models once (~0.5 GB) and compiles them for the Neural Engine — after that, transcription works fully offline.
Which permissions does it ask for?
Microphone (your side) and System Audio Recording (the other participants). Both are standard macOS permissions, asked once. Abschrift never records outside an explicit recording you started — there's no auto-detection, no always-on listening.
Where is my data?
In ~/Abschrift on your Mac: Markdown notes, transcripts, and a small local
index. Deleting the folder deletes everything — there is no copy anywhere else.
What lives how long is on Privacy &
retention.
Am I allowed to record my meetings?
That's on you, not the tool. In many countries, recording needs the consent of everyone in the conversation — the practical answer is one sentence before you hit record. The short, honest guide: Recording & the law.
How do the AI notes work if everything is local?
Transcription is always local. Notes too, by default — the built-in engine writes them on your Mac. Prefer your own setup? Use Ollama, or bring an API key for Anthropic, OpenAI, or Gemini: only transcript text is sent, never audio. Each meeting shows exactly what, if anything, left your Mac. The four options
Does it join my meetings as a bot?
No. Abschrift records the audio your Mac plays and your microphone — it works with anything. Nothing joins the call, and nobody sees a "recording bot".
How does the Pro license work?
A one-time, pay-what-you-want purchase through Polar.sh, our merchant of record. The license key arrives by email and activates in Settings, on up to 3 Macs. Pro keeps working offline, and your notes are never locked behind the license. License & activation
Refunds & support?
14-day refunds, no questions, via Polar. Bugs and feature ideas go to the public issue tracker — or ask in Discussions.