Capture calls straight from the menu bar.
The built-in recorder (macOS 14.4+) captures system audio and your microphone into the watched folder. No virtual audio drivers, nothing extra to install.
macOS 14+ menu bar app
Distavo
Private meeting notes on your Mac. Record a meeting from the menu bar — or drop a recording into a folder — and get a clean Markdown note back. Transcription runs on your Mac by default; summaries use the Ollama server you choose.
Meeting notes without handing meetings to someone else's cloud.
Distavo records or watches, converts locally, transcribes on your Mac — or on a WhisperX server you run — summarises with your Ollama model, validates, and writes notes locally. No vendor cloud at any step.
Use the folder you already sync.
Point Distavo at a local, iCloud Drive, or Google Drive folder. When a recording finishes syncing, Distavo processes it once.
Transcription runs on your Mac.
The built-in engine transcribes and separates speakers on-device (Apple Silicon). Prefer your own hardware? Point Distavo at your WhisperX server instead.
Write Markdown notes with your model.
The cleaned transcript goes to your Ollama server, then Distavo writes a structured note to your notes folder.
Recordings are useful. They are also regulated.
Distavo can turn recordings into notes, but it cannot decide whether a meeting should be recorded, shared, stored, or used as evidence. Treat recording law, privacy law, workplace rules, and court procedure as separate questions.
Not legal advice.
Check the rules where you and the other participants are located before recording sensitive calls, meetings, medical notes, interviews, HR conversations, or anything you may later want to rely on formally.
Permission rules vary by place.
Some places allow one participant to record. Others require everyone on the call or in the room to agree. Cross-border calls can make this more complex.
Making a note is not the same as publishing it.
Even when recording is allowed, later transcription, sharing, workplace use, or data retention may need a lawful basis, notice, policy, or explicit consent.
Court or tribunal use is a separate hurdle.
A recording that was lawful to make may still be challenged, excluded, limited, or require permission before it can be used in a trial, grievance, or regulated process.
Free and open tools that pair well with Distavo.
Distavo records Mac meetings itself on macOS 14.4+. For phone-first capture or anything else, any recorder that can save or export audio into your watched folder fits the workflow. Prefer tools that are open source, export ordinary audio files, and work offline when possible.
Notely Voice
GPLv3 notes and AI voice transcription app. Good when you want voice notes, imported-audio transcription, export, and phone-first capture before moving files to your Distavo folder.
Fossify Voice Recorder
Open-source, ad-free recorder for simple voice capture. Useful when you want a minimal phone recorder and will let Distavo do the transcription and summarisation later.
Sound Recorder Plus
Basic GPLv3 sound recorder with straightforward recording management and high-quality recording defaults.
Audio Recorder
Apache-licensed recorder that can create M4A or WAV files, tune sample rate and bitrate, and share or import recordings.
OBS Studio
Free, open-source option for screen, window, microphone, and system-audio capture when you need more than a voice memo.
Audacity
Free, open-source audio recorder and editor for cleaning, trimming, converting, or exporting recordings before Distavo processes them.
Native settings. No local web panel.
The App Store build is sandboxed and uses security-scoped bookmarks for folders. Direct and Setapp builds keep the same core pipeline with edition-specific distribution behavior.
Pick the built-in transcription model that fits your Mac — or your own server URLs — plus folders, speaker options, and local fallback, all from the Mac settings window. The app has no telemetry and no phone-home.
Read the privacy policy
Get Distavo today.
Distavo is on the Mac App Store, and the direct build ships as a notarized, stapled DMG from GitHub Releases. The Setapp edition is working through its review pipeline.