Vocal Notes
Transcription that never leaves your Mac
Subscription-free alternative to Otter.ai, Descript.
Vocal Notes turns speech into text on Apple Silicon, without an account and without an upload. Record a live conversation, or drop in audio and video you already have, and the transcript lands in a library that keeps recording, text and export in one place.
The details are what make it usable for real work. Playback stays in sync with the transcript, so clicking a line jumps to the exact moment behind it. A custom vocabulary teaches the app names, brands and jargon it would otherwise mangle. Quick Dictation covers the short stuff, and finished transcripts leave as Markdown or merge into a larger document.
Vocal Notes is a single purchase of $49.90 — no subscription, and no cap on how many minutes you transcribe. Because the models run locally, meetings and interviews stay on the machine they were recorded on.
Why no subscription? Transcription services bill by the minute because their servers do the work. Here your own Mac does it, so there is no meter to run.
Keywords: transcription · on-device transcription · speech-to-text · audio to text · video transcription · meeting notes · interview transcription · offline · one-time purchase · no subscription · subscription-free
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