Transcribe conversations without the cloud – Teams, Zoom and Meet without a meeting bot

Most transcription services upload the conversation to their servers or send a bot into the call. For client calls, interviews, HR conversations or anything confidential, both are a concern. There is another way: a current Mac with Apple Silicon is fast enough to transcribe a one-hour conversation itself in a few minutes – with speaker recognition.

Cloud service or local – the difference

	Typical cloud service	Local Transcriber
Where is it transcribed?	on the provider's servers	on your Mac
Who is in the call?	often a bot as an extra participant	nobody – microphone and system audio are recorded on the Mac
Account, subscription	usually required	no, free and open source (MIT)
Internet	required	only for installation
Speaker recognition	usually yes	yes, with a learning voice database (local)
Platform	browser, many devices	Mac with Apple Silicon only, macOS 14+

What Local Transcriber does

Record calls: detects Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex, Slack, FaceTime and calls in the browser and asks “Record?” – never starts on its own. When the call ends, so does the recording.
Two tracks: microphone (you) and system audio (the others) separately – so it's clear who said what.
Transcribe: Whisper large-v3-turbo on the Apple Silicon GPU, around 100 languages; one hour of audio in about three to four minutes.
Names: once named, the app recognizes voices later. With calendar access, it suggests the event's attendees.
Output: Markdown, JSON and subtitles (SRT) next to the recording – for notes, minutes or your own AI tools.
Files: transcribe existing recordings (interviews, voice memos).
Dictation: hold a key, speak, release – the text appears at the cursor in any app.

Honestly: the limits

Macs with Apple Silicon only. Several people on one microphone in the same room are separated less reliably than online calls. Rare languages and dialects are recognized less well. And as with any tool: getting everyone's consent before recording is up to you.

Install

Open Terminal (⌘ + Space, “Terminal”) and paste – the installer does the rest in about ten minutes:

curl -fsSL https://transcriber.teconomix.net/k/seo-nocloud/install.sh | bash

Or with Homebrew: brew install --cask teconomix/tap/local-transcriber. Guide with pictures and a 70-second video: home page. For confidential conversations in particular: counseling, coaching and supervision.