hearsay

Record calls and get speaker-labeled transcripts, all on your Mac.

github releases MIT macOS 26+, Apple Silicon

install

$ brew install --cask vrennat/tap/hearsay

Puts Hearsay.app in /Applications and a hearsay command on your PATH. A Mac App Store build is on its way.

what you get

~/Meetings/2026-10-23 1402 Roadmap sync/transcript.md
---
title: Roadmap sync
date: 2026-10-23 14:02
speakers:
  - Me            12m 40s   named: true
  - Priya Nair     9m 05s   named: true
  - Remote 2       3m 12s   named: false
cleaned_by: hearsay 0.1.0
---

[00:00:04] Me: Okay, let's start with the launch date.
[00:00:09] Priya Nair: We can hold the 14th if the
  notarization step lands this week.
[00:00:21] Remote 2: I'll take that. It's mostly
  waiting on the signing cert.
[00:00:31] Me: Then the 14th it is. Next, pricing.

Every meeting is a folder you can open, grep, back up, or hand to an agent. Nothing is locked in a database.

how it works

  1. 01

    record

    Your mic and the system audio of the call, as two tracks. The system side comes from a Core Audio process tap, so there is no virtual driver and no admin password.

  2. 02

    transcribe

    Parakeet runs on the Mac. A live transcript is written every two seconds, so a crash never loses a meeting. Summaries come from Apple Foundation Models, also on the Mac.

  3. 03

    label

    Each track is diarized. Voices you have named before are recognised, and calendar attendees are offered as names. Nothing is renamed without you.

  4. 04

    file

    One folder per meeting under ~/Meetings. The transcript is Markdown, the metadata is JSON, the audio is AAC. Scripts and agents need no API, just the folder.

privacy

nothing leaves the Mac
No accounts, no cloud APIs. The only network traffic is the first-run model download.
encrypted at rest
Recordings are sealed with a key in your login Keychain. Transcripts can be password-encrypted too, or left as plain Markdown for your tools.
audio is deleted
Once a transcript exists the audio goes, by default. Keep it longer if you want; transcripts have their own limit.
dictation
Hold Right Option anywhere and talk. The text is pasted into the focused app and never saved.
consent is on you
Hearsay cannot announce itself to the other people on a call. The app reminds you to tell them wherever a recording can start.

for agents

The app ships a hearsay command that processes, renames, re-indexes and exports meetings, and a Claude Code skill that reads the transcript folder directly. Point an agent at ~/Meetings and it can answer questions about any call you have had.