Record and transcribe calls on your Mac, with no bot

Press Fn + ⌃ on any call. Or click the Record calls card on Koi's Home, or Record a Call in the menu bar. It works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, a call in the browser and the like, because Koi records your Mac, not the meeting. Nothing joins the call, so there's no note taker sitting in the participant list.

Already talking to Koi? Say “record this call” and it hangs up and starts recording.

Most call apps can record, but on their terms: the host's plan, an admin's settings, and often a file in that service's cloud. A recorder on your Mac fits better when:

• You're a guest on someone else's call, everyone's fine with notes, and only the host can record in the app.
• You're on Zoom in the morning, Meet after lunch and Teams at four, and want the notes in one place.
• A note taker in the participant list would feel wrong, like on a client call or a user interview.
• What's said shouldn't sit on someone else's server.

It's less of a fit when you need every speaker named, a shared library for a whole team, or your notes on your phone. Cloud note takers do those better.

Koi listens to two things apart. Your microphone is You. What the Mac plays, everyone else on the call, is Them. The notes read like a script, You and Them in turns, so it's easy to find what you promised and what they asked for.

One honest limit: Koi splits a call by microphone and speakers, not by person. On a call with five people, the other four are all Them. If you need every speaker named, Koi doesn't do that.

Each stretch of talk is written down on your Mac as soon as it pauses, with the same Whisper model that runs Koi's voice to text dictation. No audio goes to a server to become text, and the transcript is written as the call goes rather than all at the end.

Meanwhile the screen is filmed with both sides' sound mixed in, so you get the video to rewatch, not just the words. Koi's own windows are left out of it.

The audio, the transcript and the video are saved on your Mac. The audio and the video never leave it, and with call notes off, nothing from the call does. And empty recordings don't pile up: one that heard nothing leaves no page and no video behind.

No. A small pill in the corner says Koi is listening, with a stop button. It never shows in a screen you share or record, so it won't sit on top of your slides or your demo.

That also means the people on the call won't see it. Which is why the next part matters.

It depends on where you and the others are. In some places everyone on the call has to agree. Koi doesn't announce itself to the call, so telling people, and asking, is on you. A quick “mind if I record this for my notes?” at the start goes a long way.

This isn't legal advice, so check the rules where you are. Our guide to recording a Zoom meeting on a Mac also covers the call apps' own recording options.

Press stop on the pill and the call becomes a page in Recents, marked as a meeting: titled with the date, the video at the top, then You and Them in turns. With call notes on, Koi's notes come first, and the conversation sits under a Transcript heading.

It's an ordinary page. Edit it, move it into a group, or export it to Word or PDF. More on Koi's local notes and pages.

When a recorded call ends, Koi can write its notes for you: a title, a short summary of what was said and decided, in two to four sentences, and your to-dos. Only the things you committed to or agreed to do, not everyone else's. They go at the top of the call's page as checkboxes you can tick, then the video, then the transcript.

It's your call. The first time a recorded call ends, Koi asks “Summarize this call?” and keeps your answer. To change it later, open Settings and find “Summarize my recorded calls” under Talking with Koi.

What leaves your Mac: only with it on, and only the transcript's words. They go to Koi's AI, a cloud model, to write the notes, and nothing of it is kept on the server. The audio and the video never leave your Mac. With it off, nothing from a recorded call does.

Writing the notes counts as Koi usage, from your plan's time with Koi. If it fails, Koi tries once more, then the page offers Try again. The transcript is there either way.

Your microphone is easy. The other side of the call is the Mac's own sound, and hearing it, like filming the screen, needs the Screen Recording permission. Koi asks for it when you first set it up, with a tile to drag into the list in System Settings, then a quick quit and reopen.

Trying to capture the Mac's sound for something other than a call? Our guide to recording internal audio on a Mac goes through the options.

• Ask at the start of the call, so the yes is in the recording too.
• The screen is filmed, so anything on it ends up in the video. Close what you don't want recorded before you start. Koi's own windows are left out for you.
• Check that Screen Recording is on. Without it, Koi can't hear the other side or film the screen.
• Press stop when the call ends, and the notes become a page in Recents.

Free includes 2 recorded calls a month. Pro, at $20 a month, includes 10. Max, at $99 a month, and Lifetime, at $99 once, have no limit. Yearly plans get the same each month as the monthly ones.

Before a recording starts, Koi's server checks your plan and keeps only when the recording started, so it can count them. It never gets the audio or the video. The words reach it only with call notes on, on their way to the AI, and aren't kept. Compare Koi's plans.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. The facts about Otter and Granola, the AI notepad, come from their own sites (Otter's privacy page, Granola's security page), checked October 7, 2026.

Granola says it doesn't store meeting audio: it transcribes as the call goes, using providers like Deepgram and Assembly, and keeps the transcript and your notes. Koi keeps the video, with the call's sound, but only on your Mac, and turns speech into text there.

Where they win: both run on Windows and phones. Otter has speaker recognition and shared channels for teams. Granola turns your own jottings into fuller notes and preps a brief before external meetings. Koi writes a summary and your to-dos too, but only if you turn that on, and only from the transcript's words. It's for people who want the recording and the video to stay on their Mac.

More detail in Otter.ai alternatives and Koi vs Granola AI.