Desktop Local Mode on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Meeting Notes Without a Bot Joining Your Call

Take AI meeting notes from Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, and Webex without sending a bot into the call. The LiteScribe desktop app records system audio and your microphone, so no extra participant appears in the attendee list.

You can take AI meeting notes without a bot by recording the audio your own computer is already playing. The LiteScribe desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux captures system audio alongside your microphone, so nothing joins the call as a participant and no recording bot shows up in the attendee list.

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What a bot in the attendee list does to a meeting

Most AI note takers work by dialling a bot into your call. It appears in the participant list with a name like Notetaker or AI Assistant, it often triggers the recording banner of the meeting platform itself, and every person on the call can see it. On an internal stand-up that is harmless. On a first sales call, a candidate interview, a supplier negotiation, a performance conversation, or a call with a client who was never asked whether they were comfortable with a third-party service listening, it is a different proposition entirely.

The effect on the conversation is real, and it is the reason people go looking for a bot-free option. When a recorder is visibly present, people shorten their answers, hedge on numbers, avoid naming the competitor they are actually worried about, and save the useful part for the follow-up call. The most valuable minute in a meeting is usually the unguarded one, and a visible bot is very good at removing it.

There is a practical failure mode too. A bot is a participant, so it has to be let in. Waiting rooms, guest restrictions, locked meetings, and corporate policies that block unknown attendees all stop it at the door, and the person who notices is usually you, afterwards, when there is no recording. Capturing audio on your own machine removes that entire class of problem, because there is nobody to admit.

How system audio capture works instead

Bot-free capture inverts the model. Rather than sending something into the meeting, the desktop app records the audio that is already arriving at your computer. It takes two streams: the system audio, which is everything the call is playing through your speakers or headphones, and your microphone, which is you. The app mixes and timestamps both, then produces a single transcript with speaker labels and AI notes on top.

Because that happens at the operating-system audio layer, the meeting platform is not involved at all. Nothing is installed into Zoom, no calendar bot needs permission to join, no account is added to the call, and the attendee list is exactly as long as it would have been if you were not recording. As far as the meeting is concerned you are an ordinary participant with your audio on. Technically it is the same operation as recording an in-person conversation on the same laptop.

The desktop app also watches for a meeting starting and offers to open a notes panel when it sees one, so you are not relying on remembering to press record. That prompt currently recognises Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, and Discord. You can always start capture manually for anything it does not recognise, because the capture itself does not care which application is making the sound.

Which meeting platforms this works with

Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex all work, and they all work the same way, because the app is listening to your computer rather than integrating with any of them. The same is true of Discord, a browser tab playing a webinar, a phone on speaker next to the laptop, and an in-person meeting picked up on the laptop microphone. If your machine can hear it, it can be transcribed.

That is a meaningful difference from bot-based tools, which need a specific integration per platform and tend to support the big three well and everything else poorly. It also means there is nothing to reconfigure when a client insists on the one video platform your note taker has never heard of.

Headphones are not a problem. System audio is captured from the output stream on its way to your headset, not from the sound in the room, so you do not have to put the call on speaker to record it. Speaker labelling still works, and you can rename speakers afterwards so the transcript reads with real names instead of Speaker A and Speaker B.

The limitation, stated plainly

Bot-free capture records what your machine can hear, and that is the whole constraint. You have to be in the meeting yourself, on the machine running the app, with the call audio playing through it. There is no way to send it to a call you are not attending and no way to schedule it to cover a meeting you will miss. If you join from your phone while the laptop sits silent in another room, you get nothing. If you drop off ten minutes early, the recording ends ten minutes early, because at that point your computer stops hearing the meeting.

This is the honest trade against bot-based tools, and it is worth knowing before you choose. A bot can be sent to a meeting on your behalf, sit through the whole thing, and hand you notes for a call you never attended. That is genuinely useful for people who are double-booked all day. If that is the job you need doing, a bot-based tool is the right answer, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

For the far more common case, where you are in the meeting and simply do not want a robot sitting in it with you, capturing on your own machine is better on every axis: nothing to admit, nothing visible in the participant list, no per-platform integration to maintain, and it keeps working on the call your note taker has never supported.

Bot-free is not the same as private

Two things get sold together in this category that are actually independent. Bot-free is about who can see that you are recording. Private is about where the audio goes afterwards. A tool can be one without the other, and most bot-free note takers are exactly that: nothing joins the call, and the audio is then uploaded to a cloud service for transcription.

LiteScribe works that way by default. The live meeting path sends audio to our cloud transcription provider, and we are not going to describe that as private, because it is not. If the sensitivity of the conversation is the reason you wanted bot-free capture in the first place, the setting you actually want is Local Mode, which is part of the desktop app on the Pro and Business plans. With Local Mode on, speech recognition and the AI that writes the notes both run on your own CPU or GPU, and the recording is not uploaded at all.

So there are two useful configurations. Bot-free on its own means nobody in the meeting sees a recorder, while the transcription still happens in the cloud. Bot-free with Local Mode means nobody sees a recorder and the audio never leaves your machine. Pick the second for privileged, regulated, or commercially sensitive conversations, and the first when convenience matters more than the data path.

Not adding a bot does not remove the consent question

Removing the bot removes a notification, not an obligation. Recording law varies by country and, in the United States, by state, and plenty of jurisdictions require the consent of everyone on the call rather than just the person pressing record. Some employers and some client contracts add their own rules on top. None of that changes because your note taker is invisible.

In practice the fix takes one sentence at the top of the call: say that you are taking AI-assisted notes and check that everyone is comfortable with it. That tends to land better than a bot appearing unannounced in the participant list, because a person is asking rather than a service arriving. This page describes how the capture works technically and is not legal advice. If you record regulated or privileged conversations, check your own obligations first.

Why use LiteScribe Local Mode

No extra participant

Nothing joins the call, so no recording bot appears in the attendee list and there is nothing for a waiting room or guest policy to block.

Works on any platform

Capture happens at the audio layer, so Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex, and anything else your computer plays are all handled the same way.

Speaker-labelled transcript

System audio and your microphone are captured together and separated into a transcript with speaker labels you can rename.

Optional on-device path

Pair bot-free capture with desktop Local Mode so transcription and AI notes run on your own machine and the audio is never uploaded.

Meeting Notes Without a Bot Joining Your Call

1
Install the desktop app
Full system audio capture is a desktop feature. Download LiteScribe for Windows, macOS, or Linux and sign in. Nothing needs to be installed into Zoom, Teams, Meet, or Webex.
2
Join the meeting as normal
Join from the same computer that is running LiteScribe. The app spots common meeting apps starting and offers to open a notes panel, or you can start capture yourself.
3
Let it capture system audio and your mic
The app records what the call is playing plus your microphone, and shows a live transcript as it goes. No participant is added to the meeting.
4
Get notes, then export
When you stop, the transcript is turned into a summary and action items. Export to PDF, DOCX, SRT, or plain text. Turn on Local Mode first if the audio must stay on your machine.

What is private, and what is honest

Privacy on this page means the desktop Local Mode, where your audio is transcribed on your own CPU or GPU and an on-device AI model writes your notes, so your recording is never uploaded and no outside provider ever sees your transcript. The web app, the mobile app, and the cloud path are different: they use a cloud transcription service and cloud AI, so they are not private in this sense. Local Mode is a desktop feature on the Pro and Business plans, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux after a one-time model download.

We will not call the app air-gapped, because it is not. Your audio stays on your device, but the desktop app reconnects to LiteScribe periodically to validate your plan and remaining minutes, and it pauses new offline work if it cannot check in for about two days. That account check carries none of your content. One more thing worth saying plainly: the finished transcript syncs to your own LiteScribe account by default, so you can read it on your other devices. Turn off "Sync new local transcripts to cloud" in Settings, Privacy, or lock an individual transcript, and the text stays here with the audio.

Local Mode Privacy and security Privacy policy

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Nothing joins the call, so no bot appears in the participant list, and the meeting platform does not show its own bot-recording banner because the platform is not doing the recording. That is a description of how the capture works, not legal advice. You may still be required to tell people you are recording, and telling them is good practice regardless.

Yes, and with anything else that plays audio through your computer, including Discord, a browser tab, or an in-person conversation picked up on your laptop microphone. Capture happens at the audio layer rather than through a per-platform integration, so every platform behaves the same way.

Not always. Capturing everything your computer plays is an operating-system level operation, and that full system audio capture does need the desktop app for Windows, macOS, or Linux. If the call runs in a browser tab there are two other routes: on a Chromium desktop browser such as Chrome or Edge, the web app can capture that tab audio together with your microphone, and the Chrome extension covers browser meetings the same way. Safari, Firefox, and mobile browsers cannot capture tab audio, so those do need the desktop app.

No, and this is the real limitation of the approach. It records what your machine can hear, so you have to be in the meeting on that machine with the call audio playing. It cannot be sent to a call on your behalf, and if you leave the meeting early the recording ends there. If you need coverage of meetings you will not attend, a bot-based tool is the right choice.

Yes. The system audio is captured from the output stream before it reaches your headphones, so you do not need to play the call out loud in the room. Your own voice is captured separately through the microphone.

No, and the two are worth keeping separate. Bot-free means no participant is added to the call. By default the audio is still transcribed in the cloud, which is not a private path. To keep the audio on your machine as well, turn on Local Mode in the desktop app, available on the Pro and Business plans, where transcription and AI notes run on your own CPU or GPU.

Yes. With no call audio to capture, the app records your laptop microphone, so a room conversation is transcribed the same way and produces the same speaker-labelled transcript and notes.