In one paragraph
LokalBot is a free, open-source Mac app that records meetings without a bot, transcribes and summarizes them on your Mac, and lets you search what was said alongside the screen text you choose to save. It is local-first: there is no LokalBot account, analytics, telemetry backend, or hosted AI service. It is built and maintained in the open on GitHub under the GPLv3 licence.
Fact sheet
| LokalBot | |
|---|---|
| Tagline | Find what you said or saw on your Mac. |
| Category | Local-first meeting notes and personal work memory |
| Platform | macOS 15.0 or later on Apple Silicon (M1 or later) |
| Price | Free, with no account or paid tier |
| License | GNU GPL v3 |
| Install | LokalBot.dmg from GitHub Releases, or brew install --cask stevyhacker/tap/lokalbot |
| Updates | Signed in-app updates via Sparkle, published on GitHub Releases |
| Where data lives | In LokalBot's Application Support folder on your Mac |
| Default speech model | Qwen3-ASR 1.7B (52 languages and dialects), since version 0.8.1 |
| Other speech models | Parakeet TDT, IBM Granite Speech, Whisper large-v3 turbo |
| Summaries and chat | Qwen3.5 4B on a bundled llama.cpp runtime |
| Search | Keyword plus semantic search with Harrier 0.6B embeddings |
| Optional AI backends | Apple Intelligence (macOS 26+), Ollama, OpenAI-compatible servers; remote servers need approval |
| Source | github.com/stevyhacker/lokalbot |
What it does
- Bot-free meeting recording. It records your microphone and the meeting app's audio on separate tracks. On a fresh install, it asks through a notification before recording a detected meeting.
- Local transcripts and recaps. Transcripts, speaker separation, summaries, decisions, and action items are generated on-device, with citations back to the discussion.
- One search. Search meetings and any saved screen text by keyword or meaning, then jump to the matching passage.
- Optional workday memory. Day tracking starts with app names and window titles only. Saving visible text and encrypted screenshots is a separate opt-in; screenshots are deleted after 14 days by default.
- Dictation and autocomplete. Hold ⌥ Space to dictate into any app. Optional local autocomplete suggests the rest of a sentence as you type.
- Your files, your tools. Export to Markdown, Obsidian, or Logseq. A read-only CLI and MCP server let approved local agents query your library; both stay off until you enable Agent Access.
What it does not do
- It does not join calls, upload recordings, or require an account.
- It does not run on Intel Macs, Windows, iOS, or the web.
- It does not import existing audio files; it transcribes meetings it records.
- It does not sync between devices. Any sync you set up for exported Markdown is under your control.
How it compares
Side-by-side pages cover Granola, Otter, Fireflies, Hyprnote, MacWhisper, Superwhisper, Screenpipe, and Rewind. Measured model results are on the benchmarks page.
Project and contact
LokalBot is developed publicly on GitHub, where releases, source, and issues live. For help, see the support page. Report security problems privately through the security policy. The privacy policy describes exactly when the app uses the network.