I built a $5 meeting recorder for Mac that never leaves your machine
Most meeting recorders I tried do one of two things: they join your call as a bot, or they upload your audio to a server. Almost all of them charge a monthly fee for it. I didn't want either, so I built Listener , a native Mac app that records a meeting, transcribes it and writes an editable summary. All of it runs on your Mac. What it does Records both sides of your meetings Transcribes…
Most meeting recorders require either a bot joining the call or uploading audio to a server. They also typically charge a monthly fee. The creator of Listener, a native Mac app, sought an alternative. Listener records both sides of meetings, transcribes them on-device using Apple's speech recognition, and creates an editable summary with Apple Intelligence. All of this occurs without an account, login, or internet connection. The app is a standalone Swift application for $5, with no subscription required.
Apple now offers speech recognition and language models that run locally, making it possible for Listener to bypass the need for a server. This eliminates the need for a privacy policy, per-minute costs, and subscriptions. The current limitation is that transcription is only available in Brazilian Portuguese, but the interface and summary language can be in English. The creator plans to add English transcription to the list of priorities.
Listener requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later on a Mac with Apple Intelligence. The summary is generated on demand with a button, though automatic generation is not yet implemented. The summaries depend on Apple's on-device model, which may vary in quality. The creator, a solo developer in Brazil, is seeking feedback on which language users would like to see supported next and what features are lacking for their meeting needs.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
