The AI note taker for Microsoft Teams that needs no Copilot licence
Teams can transcribe a meeting without recording it, and Copilot can write the notes, but both need the right Microsoft plan and both keep the result in Microsoft's cloud. Private Notetaker takes notes on your own machine, in any Teams meeting, with no licence and no bot.
macOS (Apple Silicon) & Windows (64-bit) · Free 7-day trial · No card required.
| Private Notetaker | Teams transcription and Copilot | Bot notetakers (Otter, Fireflies, Fathom) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the meeting is processed | 100% on your device | On Microsoft's servers | On the vendor's servers |
| Bot in the participant list | Nothing. It runs on your computer, not in the meeting | No, built into Teams; everyone sees a transcription notice | Yes, a bot participant joins |
| Needs a paid plan | No Microsoft Teams plan needed. Works for meetings you host and ones you join | Transcription: a business Microsoft 365 plan. Intelligent recap: Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence | Free tiers with monthly caps; paid seats for full use |
| Works offline | Yes, fully | No | No |
| Where your notes live | Only on your own disk | Transcript in the organiser's OneDrive; recap in Teams | The vendor's cloud |
| Who can use it | Anyone on the call, from their own computer | The organiser's permissions decide who may transcribe | Anyone with a vendor account, host or not |
| Price | $15/mo or $149 once, yours forever | See each vendor's pricing page | |
Platform and vendor facts as published on their own pages, checked 16 September 2026.
Their privacy is a policy.
Ours is architecture.
Privacy by policy
Every cloud note taker
- Hosted in a chosen region, so you trust where the servers are
- Encrypted in transit and at rest, so you trust the keys are handled well
- Deleted on request, so you trust the deletion actually happens
- “We don’t train on your data”, so you trust the pledge outlives the roadmap
Privacy by architecture
Private Notetaker
- ✓Audio is captured, transcribed, and summarized on your hardware
- ✓There is no server holding your meetings to breach or subpoena
- ✓Nothing to delete, because nothing was ever collected
- ✓No pledge required. The data simply is not there
Don't take our word for it. Turn WiFi off and watch it keep working.
How it works with Microsoft Teams
Private Notetaker captures the audio of the Teams call as it plays on your computer, so it works in meetings other people organise, in tenants where transcription is switched off, and on personal Teams accounts.
Hit record
Open Private Notetaker before the call and press record. No bot joins, nothing appears in the participant list, and no Microsoft Teams setting is involved.
Local AI transcribes
A Whisper-class model turns speech into text and a local language model writes the summary. All of it on your hardware, so it works offline and nothing is uploaded.
Notes, done
Summary, key decisions, action items, and the full transcript, ready the moment you stop recording. Searchable forever, stored only on your machine.
I built this for myself. I live in back-to-back client calls, and I was never comfortable piping confidential conversations about clients' revenue, ad accounts, and contracts through someone else's cloud just to get a summary. So I made a note taker where everything stays on my machine. I have used it every working day since. Now I am opening it up.
Simple pricing. Either way, it is all yours.
Available for Mac & Windows. Pay once or monthly, whichever suits you.
Monthly
Cancel anytime. The notes you took stay yours.
- ✓Unlimited meetings and recording time
- ✓Local transcription and AI summaries
- ✓Full-history search on your device
- ✓Light and dark mode, Mac + Windows
- ✓No account required to take notes
Lifetime
Pay once, yours forever. Includes updates.
- ✓Unlimited meetings and recording time
- ✓Local transcription and AI summaries
- ✓Full-history search on your device
- ✓Light and dark mode, Mac + Windows
- ✓No account required to take notes
- ✓Never a subscription
Prefer to try first? Download the app and use it free for 7 days, no card needed. Buying charges right away and is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Microsoft Teams questions, answered
Does Microsoft Teams have an AI note taker? +
Yes, in two layers. A Teams meeting on a business plan can be transcribed live, and Copilot or Intelligent recap (Teams Premium or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence) turns that transcript into notes and action items. Both live in Microsoft's cloud and depend on the organiser's tenant settings. If you need notes in a meeting you did not organise, or your tenant has these features off, a local app is the alternative.
How do I turn on AI note taking in Teams? +
In the meeting, open More actions and start transcription. By default organisers and co-organisers can do this, or presenters if the organiser allows it. Copilot notes then need a Copilot or Teams Premium licence on the account. Private Notetaker sits outside Teams entirely: press record on your desktop before the call and the notes are written locally.
Do you have to record a Teams meeting to get a transcript? +
No. Microsoft's guide describes starting a live transcription only, without recording. All participants see a notification that the meeting is being transcribed, and the transcript is stored in the meeting organiser's OneDrive for Business.
Can I transcribe a Teams meeting without people knowing? +
Not with Teams' own transcription, which notifies everyone. A local app runs outside the meeting, so Teams shows nothing, but that does not remove your legal duty: in all-party consent states and much of Europe every participant has to agree to being recorded or transcribed, whichever tool you use. Tell people. Our consent-law guide has the state-by-state detail.
Recording law is real: read which states need everyone's consent before you rely on any of this.
Further reading
- The best AI meeting note takers in 2026
- How to transcribe a Teams meeting without recording it
- Does Microsoft Teams have an AI note taker? What Copilot actually needs
- AI note takers that don't record: transcribing vs recording, and why it matters
- Two-party consent states, and what the lists get wrong
Your meetings are nobody else's business.
Download the AI note taker that keeps everything on your device. Free for 7 days, no account, no card.
Mac & Windows.