Meeting notes, where you already work
Serial Notes lives in your menu bar, records every meeting, and transcribes it on-device. Clean Markdown saves straight to the folder you choose — ready for Notion, Apple Notes, or Obsidian.
Free & open source · No account, no cloud
# Weekly Standup
June 1, 2026 · 6 participants
## Summary
Team aligned on the Q3 launch. The auth migration is the last blocker; design sign-off lands Thursday.
## Action items
- [ ] Dylan — ship the auth migration PR
- [ ] Priya — finalize onboarding copy
- [x] Sam — book the launch review
## Transcript
You 09:02 Let's start with the launch blockers.
Priya 09:04 Onboarding copy is about ninety percent there.
Fully compatible with
How it works
From call to clean notes,
all on device
Serial Notes runs entirely from your menu bar and handles the whole loop — watch it work, start to finish.
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Team aligned on the Q3 launch. The auth migration is the last blocker; design sign-off lands Thursday.
- Dylan — ship the auth migration PR
- Priya — finalize onboarding copy
- Sam — book the launch review
# Weekly Standup
June 1, 2026 · 6 participants
## Summary
Team aligned on the Q3 launch. Auth migration is the last blocker.
## Action items
- [ ] Dylan — ship the auth migration PR
- [x] Sam — book the launch review
## Transcript
You 09:02 Let's start with the blockers.
Private by design
Your audio never leaves your Mac
Recording, transcription, and summaries all run on-device — nothing is ever uploaded. Each meeting saves as a plain Markdown file you own outright: a file over app approach, so your notes stay readable in any editor long after Serial Notes is gone.
No accounts · No servers · No telemetry
How it compares
Free, open source, and entirely on your Mac
Most meeting tools are cloud subscriptions that need an account and a connection. Serial Notes is a free, open-source app that runs start to finish on your machine.
| Serial Notes | Granola | Otter.ai | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, unlimited | Free*, then $14/mo | Free*, then $8/mo | Free*, then $15/mo |
| Open source | ||||
| Runs fully on-device | Partial | |||
| Works offline | ||||
| No account required | ||||
| No bot joins the call | ||||
| Notes are plain local files |
* Free tiers are capped — Granola 25 meetings total, Otter 300 minutes/month, Fathom 5 AI summaries/month. Granola records locally but enhances notes with cloud AI, so it needs a connection. Otter and Fathom now offer bot-free capture modes but default to a bot that joins the call. Details verified June 2026; see each product’s pricing page.