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Why your meeting notes app can read your meetings, and Minutesmith's can't
Most privacy claims are a policy. This one's an architecture.
Most meeting note apps ask you to trust a privacy policy. Ask a different question instead: what happens if you just remove the thing the policy is protecting, the server?
How the industry usually works
Audio gets recorded, streamed to a cloud service, transcribed there, summarized there, then sent back to you. Somewhere in that chain, a company you don't work for holds a copy of your client call, your standup, or your lecture. That's not a scandal, it's just the default architecture, and most of us use it without ever thinking about it twice.
How Minutesmith works instead
Recording, transcription, and summarization all happen on the Mac itself. No account required. No server run by us. Transcription runs on a local Whisper model, even offline. Summaries run on a local model by default. If you choose a cloud model for summaries instead, that's an explicit opt-in using your own API key, and the request goes from your device straight to that provider, never through us.
What this actually changes for you
- No sign-up or email verification before you can hit record.
- Works fully offline, including transcription, once the local model has downloaded.
- Recordings and transcripts live as plain files on your own disk. Export, back up, or delete them without contacting support.
- No analytics, no crash SDK, no ad tracking phoning home.
The honest tradeoff
On-device models aren't as capable as the largest cloud models. That's real, and it's why the bring-your-own-key option exists for anyone who wants a specific cloud model's quality, not to quietly walk back the privacy claim, but to be upfront that local-first has a ceiling and give you a way past it on your own terms.
Who this matters most for
Freelancers and consultants on confidential client calls. Students recording lectures without signing up for an edtech account. Anyone who spends meetings typing instead of listening.
Try it
Minutesmith is live on the Mac App Store now, with launch pricing 50% off through October 31, 2026. If you'd rather verify the claims above than take them on faith, the privacy policy is a good place to start.