Notes providers
One note applies to every option below: transcripts and notes are automated output and can contain errors. Verify anything you act on.
Transcription is always on-device — the provider setting only decides who writes the notes from the finished transcript. There are four options:
Built-in local engine (free, the default)
By default, Abschrift writes notes on your Mac with its built-in engine — no Ollama, no account, no API key. It picks an open model for your hardware and downloads it once, showing the size first. Nothing leaves the machine, not even the notes. Our published meeting-notes benchmark decides which model your Mac gets, and why. Where a Mac can genuinely trade speed for quality, Settings → Notes & AI offers the benchmarked options.
When a benchmark refresh changes the recommendation for your Mac, Abschrift asks once before updating. If you accept, notes keep using the current model until the new one is downloaded and verified. After the switch, Abschrift deletes the old model file to free disk space.
Fully local with Ollama (free)
With Ollama installed, Abschrift writes notes through
your own local server. To install: brew install ollama, then
ollama pull qwen3.5:9b and ollama serve. Either local option
combines with Local-only mode in Settings — that makes cloud egress impossible at
the code level, not merely switched off.
Cloud, with your own key (free)
In Settings → Notes & AI, pick Anthropic, OpenAI, or Gemini. Paste your API key. Only the meeting's transcript text is sent — never audio, never voice fingerprints. Every meeting shows an amber badge naming exactly what left the Mac, for example “notes via anthropic”. Costs are your provider's usual per-token pricing.
Transcript-only (free)
Choose none — transcript only, or “Skip for now” during onboarding. Meetings then complete with a speaker-labeled transcript and no notes. Each meeting shows a Generate notes button. Once a provider is configured, you can add notes any time within your transcript retention window.
Which model?
- The built-in engine picks per hardware from the benchmark-generated catalog. The other providers default to current models: qwen3.5:9b, Claude Sonnet 5, GPT-5.5, and Gemini 3.5 Flash. You can edit the model per provider.
- The notes prompt is a file you can edit:
~/Abschrift/prompt.md.