Turn a recording into meeting notes on Mac

The free way (if there is one)

There isn't a built-in way to do this on macOS today — you'd normally reach for a web tool that uploads your file, or a paid app.

There's no built-in macOS way to turn a recording into notes. The usual route is an AI note-taker that joins or ingests your call in the cloud. Fileknife does the same job on your Mac, from a recording you already have.

With Fileknife

Here's the same job in Fileknife, where it stays on your Mac:

Why reach for Fileknife

• One recording becomes a summary, the decisions made, action items and open questions — the structure is always the same.
• The recording is transcribed on your Mac first, then the notes are written; nothing is uploaded.
• Long recordings are condensed in sections before the notes are written, so a long meeting still works.
• Every section is editable before you save as Markdown or a Word (.docx) file.

Presets and options

• Summary, decisions, action items, open questions
• Save as Markdown or Word (.docx)

Takes: Audio and video recordings — meetings, calls, voice memos. Gives: Editable notes saved as Markdown (.md) or a Word (.docx) file.

Honest limits

Needs Apple Intelligence — a Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 26 or later, with Apple Intelligence turned on. On a Mac that can't run it, Meeting Notes still appears with a calm note about what it needs, and won't run there. The notes are drawn only from what's in the recording; decisions, owners and tasks are never invented, but a model can still mishear or miss something — every section is editable before you save. A long recording is condensed in sections first, so a very long meeting is summarised, not quoted line by line. Meeting Notes, Video Chapters and Summarize (for recordings) use Apple's on-device speech recognition. macOS downloads its speech files once, the first time you use it. Your audio never leaves your Mac.