LokalBot — Find what you said or saw on your Mac

A quick look

See it in action.

A 45-second tour: what LokalBot keeps, the local models that do the work, and the real app in use.

Real app, fictional demo data · Open the video

Meetings

What did we agree on?

Find the decision and jump to the part of the call where it was discussed. Record both sides without a bot joining the meeting.

How recording works

A holiday shoot planning call with action items, decisions about shooting on iPhone, and timestamps linking back to the audio. — Decisions and action items link back to the recording.

Saved screen text

Where was that page?

Find a page by a word you remember, even when you’ve forgotten its title. Search what you saw on screen and open the matching moment.

Screen text and screenshots are optional. You choose which apps and sites to exclude.

Searching for captions finds the delivery checklist from Pages and related meetings, with a separator after every result. — “Captions” finds the delivery checklist you had open in Pages.

Today

What do I still need to do?

Review the day's summary and open action items without reading every transcript again. Open the timeline when you need to retrace your day.

Today shows a day digest, tasks, and unfinished actions linked to the meetings they came from. — The day's summary and the work that still needs attention.

Screenshots show the app with example data. Select an image to see it full size.

A hand with the writing, too.

Talk instead of typing

Hold ⌥ Space, say what you want to write, and release. The words appear at your cursor. Dictation runs on your Mac.

Finish the sentence

Optional autocomplete suggests the next words as you type. Press Tab to accept. It uses a dedicated local model by default.

Draft the follow-up

Turn a meeting into a follow-up draft or a weekly work log. Local routines save drafts to a folder you choose. You review and send them.

Agent access

Works with your agents.

Claude Code, Codex, or any MCP client can search your meetings through the bundled lokalbot-cli or its MCP server. Ask what was decided, who owns an action item, or where a topic came up.

Read-only. Agents can search and read your library. They can't change it.
Off until you turn it on in Settings. Screen memory needs its own permission.
Your agent, your provider. Results go to the agent's model provider, so connect only clients you trust.

# Connect Claude Code over MCP
$ claude mcp add lokalbot -- lokalbot-cli mcp

# Or search from any shell or agent
$ lokalbot-cli search "database decision"
$ lokalbot-cli actions --owner me

Set up agent access Claude Code plugin

Under the hood

How it works.

A 25-second look at the local models that do the work: Nemotron tells speakers apart, Qwen3-ASR transcribes, Qwen3.5 summarizes, EmbeddingGemma 2 searches by meaning, Apple Vision reads screen text if you opt in, and LFM2.5 finishes your sentences. About 6.5 GB of models, all on your Mac.

The video still shows Harrier, the search model EmbeddingGemma 2 replaced. Open the video · Technical deep dive · Model benchmarks

Privacy

Your recordings stay on your Mac.

Recording, transcription, and the built-in models run on your Mac. Screen text and screenshots are optional. You choose what to capture and how long to keep it.

Models and updates need a download. If you choose a remote model, the app asks before sending it context. Agent commands and external tools have separate permissions and data handling.

Read the privacy policy Read the source How local storage works

Switching

Coming from another app?

Granola

The same bot-free capture, but transcription and summaries run on your Mac. No account or subscription.

Otter or Fireflies

Nothing joins your call, the audio stays on your Mac, and there are no minute caps.

Apple Notes

Notes records your microphone, so with headphones on it misses the other side of the call. LokalBot records both sides and keeps every meeting searchable.

Rewind or Screenpipe

Rewind's Mac app is discontinued. LokalBot starts with app and window activity; screen text and screenshots are opt-in and deleted after 14 days by default.

Hyprnote or Meetily

Also open source and local. Here the local AI ships built in, and speaker separation, meeting detection, and MCP access are free.

Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, or MacWhisper

Dictation runs on your Mac and comes with meeting notes and recall, for free. For transcribing files you already have, MacWhisper is the better tool.

Competitor details were last verified on September 24, 2026, and on October 1, 2026 for Apple Notes, Meetily, and Wispr Flow. All comparisons

Try it on your Mac.

Free and open source. No account or subscription.

Download for Mac

.dmg installer · Release notes

Or with Homebrew: brew install --cask stevyhacker/tap/lokalbot

Apple Silicon (M1 or later) · macOS 15+
Models download during setup. Local processing can work offline afterward.

System requirements · Setup help and feedback

A few questions.

What does it capture from my screen?

New installs start with activity-only tracking. You can turn tracking off, save visible text without pictures, or add encrypted screenshots. Text and screenshots are opt-in. Excluded apps and sites, password managers, and focused password fields are skipped. Private browser windows are captured like any other window, so exclude the browser or site to keep them out. Captured text and screenshots are deleted after 14 days by default. Moments you explicitly save stay until you unsave or delete them.

Does anything leave my Mac?

Recordings and built-in processing stay local. Network access covers model downloads, update checks, and optional agent setup. A remote model receives the context needed for a request only after you approve its server. Approved agent commands can also access the network. Connected CLI or MCP tools have their own data handling; meeting and screen-memory access have separate permissions. See the privacy policy.

Can I choose my own models?

Yes. Start with the built-in local models, choose another downloaded model, or connect Ollama, Apple Intelligence, or an OpenAI-compatible server. Summaries and chat can also run on your own ChatGPT or Claude plan, with no API key. A remote server or plan gets context only after you approve it. Transcription, summaries, and autocomplete have their own model choices. See the transcription model guide and offline setup guide.

Is LokalBot free?

Yes. LokalBot is free and open source under GPLv3. There is no account, subscription, or LokalBot server. See the fact sheet for what it includes.

Which Macs does it run on?

Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or later) with macOS 15 or later. Intel Macs are not supported. Check the system requirements for memory and disk space.

Does a bot join my meetings?

No. LokalBot records your microphone and the meeting app's audio on separate tracks. Let participants know you're recording and get their consent. Read how recording works.

Find what you said or saw on your Mac.