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LokalBot vs Apple Notes

Why not just use Apple Notes? On macOS 27 it records audio into a note, transcribes it on your Mac, and Apple Intelligence writes a summary — free, with nothing to install. For a voice memo or a lecture, that may be all you need. For meetings, the gap is the other side of the call: Notes records your microphone, so with headphones on it doesn't hear Zoom, Teams, or Meet. LokalBot records the meeting app's audio too, turns each call into notes linked to the discussion, and keeps every meeting searchable on your Mac.

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Side by side

Feature by feature.

Feature LokalBot Apple Notes
Audio it records Your microphone + the meeting app's audio, so both sides of a Zoom, Teams, or Meet call are captured Your microphone only — Notes can't capture what other apps play
Starting a recording Detects meetings and, on a fresh install, asks before recording You start each recording by hand inside a note
Transcription On your Mac — Qwen3-ASR by default, with Parakeet, Granite Speech, and Whisper as alternatives On your Mac, with Apple's speech model; needs M1 or later
Transcription languages 52 languages and dialects with the default model; 99 with Whisper 10, including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese
Meeting notes Recap, decisions, action items, and open questions, with citations back to the discussion An Apple Intelligence summary of each recording
Where summaries run On your Mac — llama.cpp built in; remote servers only if you approve them Apple Intelligence, on your Mac or on Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers
Across meetings Keyword and semantic search, cited answers, and a list of open action items Each recording and its summary live in their own note
Where recordings are kept A local library on your Mac; nothing syncs In Notes — synced through iCloud if you use iCloud notes, end-to-end encrypted only with Advanced Data Protection
Dictation Hold ⌥ Space in any app macOS Dictation, built in
Writing autocomplete Cotyping: multi-word suggestions from a local model, in almost any app Inline predictive text completes the word or phrase you're typing
Day timeline App and window activity by default; screen text and encrypted screenshots are opt-in and deleted after 14 days No — Screen Time shows time per app
Source code Open source, GPLv3 Proprietary
Price Free Free with macOS
Platforms macOS 15+ on Apple Silicon Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Verdict

Which one fits you?

Pick Apple Notes if…

Already on your Mac, and good at what it covers.

  • You record lectures, voice notes, or in-person conversations near your Mac's microphone
  • You record phone calls in the Phone app — both sides hear a notice, and the recording lands in Notes
  • You want recordings synced to your iPhone and iPad
  • You'd rather not download several gigabytes of models

Pick LokalBot if…

For calls on Zoom, Teams, or Meet — and what you do after them.

  • You need both sides of a video call recorded, even with headphones on
  • You want decisions and action items you can trace back to the discussion
  • You want to search and ask across all your meetings, not one note at a time
  • You want recordings kept in a local library, with source code you can read

Questions

The short answers.

Can't I record a Zoom call in Notes?

Only your side, unless the other voices reach your microphone through your speakers. Notes on macOS 27 requests microphone access only, so it can't capture another app's audio. LokalBot asks for both: the microphone for you, and macOS audio capture for the meeting app, so the other participants are recorded even through headphones. Either way, tell people you're recording.

Are Apple Intelligence summaries private?

Apple designs them to be. Requests run on your Mac or on Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers, which Apple says don't keep your data. LokalBot's built-in summaries never leave your Mac, and its source code is public, so you can check. Notes stored in iCloud are end-to-end encrypted only if you turn on Advanced Data Protection.

Does LokalBot replace Notes?

No. Keep Notes for notes, lists, and phone-call recordings. LokalBot is for meetings and recall: it records calls, writes notes you can trace back to the source, and exports them as Markdown when you want them elsewhere.

Download

Both sides of the call, on your Mac.

Free and open source. Models download on first use; built-in inference then works offline.

Download for macOS

.dmg installer · brew install --cask stevyhacker/tap/lokalbot · all releases and notes

Apple, Apple Notes, Apple Intelligence, and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc.; LokalBot is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. Details are based on Apple's support guides for macOS 27 and the Notes app's declared permissions as of October 2026 and may change — if something here is wrong or out of date, open an issue and we'll fix it.