HumlaNotes on keeping meeting notes private.
Local, open-source, no bot in the call. Written by the person building it.
Granola Review (2026): It's Not a Notetaker, and That's the Whole Point
An honest review of Granola in September 2026 - what it costs, why the 30-day free tier isn't stingy, the one setting that proves what kind of app it really is, and where it's quietly becoming the thing it was built to replace. Every price and quote checked against Granola's live pages, 1 September 2026.
Otter.ai Review (2026): Good Software, and a Judge Just Named the Catch
An honest review of Otter.ai in August 2026 - what it costs, what it's genuinely good at, and the thing its own privacy policy admits that a federal judge just built a ruling on. Every price and quote checked against Otter's live pages, 25 August 2026.
The Bot Was Never the Problem: What the Otter Ruling Means for Every Other AI Notetaker
On 13 August 2026 a federal judge let wiretap claims against Otter proceed - not because a bot joined the call, but because Otter uses the conversation for its own purposes. Eleven days earlier, Granola got sued on the same theory with no bot at all. Four cases, one common thread, and a checklist worth actually doing.
How to Write Meeting Action Items That Actually Get Done (with a Markdown template)
Action items don't die in your notes, they die in the room. A format with nowhere to hide a missing owner, a copy-paste Markdown template, a summary prompt that produces it, and an honest account of what AI extraction can't do.
Humla Ships an MCP Server: Your Meeting Notes, Inside Claude Code and Codex
Humla now ships its own Model Context Protocol server — six read-only tools that let Claude Code, Codex, or any MCP client search and read your meeting notes. No token, no port, no network: a local binary reading your own SQLite database.
How to Record a Meeting on a Mac (Every Method, Honestly Compared)
Five ways to record a meeting on a Mac — built-in call recording, QuickTime, a virtual audio device, a bot notetaker, or a system-audio app. What each one captures, who gets told, and why macOS makes internal audio so awkward.
Groq Data Retention (2026): No Training by Contract, and an Off Switch You Can Reach
Groq doesn't retain inference inputs by default, and its Services Agreement flatly prohibits training on them. Zero Data Retention is a toggle in the Console rather than a sales conversation. What the contract says, what the docs don't, why there's no EU endpoint, and how it compares to OpenAI and Deepgram. Verified against Groq's own pages, August 2026.
The Mac apps our agency actually runs (and the pattern I didn't expect to find)
Fourteen Mac apps from a small digital creative agency, audited for licence and for where client work actually goes. Every open-source tool was one we chose. Every proprietary one was chosen for us.
Deepgram Data Retention (2026): The List Price Opts You Into Model Training
Deepgram's published pay-as-you-go rates opt you into the Model Improvement Program, which persists part of your audio for training. One query parameter turns it off. What the docs say, what they don't say, how it compares to OpenAI, and why your notetaker — not you — decides. Verified against Deepgram's own pages, August 2026.
OpenAI Data Retention Policy (2026): What They Keep, and For How Long
What OpenAI actually retains from ChatGPT and from the API — 30-day abuse logs, the endpoints with no retention at all, training defaults, Zero Data Retention, and the New York Times court order that ended in September 2025. Verified against OpenAI's own docs, July 2026.
How Humla does RAG locally: FTS5, embeddings, and RRF on your Mac
A walk through Humla's local retrieval stack: paragraph-aware chunking, standalone SQLite FTS5, a content-addressed embedding cache, and reciprocal rank fusion — no vector database, no server, no network hop unless you asked for one.
Best Open-Source Meeting Notetakers (2026)
Seven open-source tools for transcribing and summarising meetings, from full no-bot notetakers to self-hosted transcription servers. Licences, what each one actually does, and the self-hosting story behind each.
6 Best Fireflies Alternatives in 2026
Fireflies is a capable cloud notetaker, but it emails your recap to everyone on the invite by default and keeps every meeting on its servers. Six honest alternatives — local, open-source, cheaper, or quieter — and who each one is really for.
Chat With Your Meeting History — Private, Cited, and Offline
Humla just shipped a chat pane on every note. Ask a question across your meeting history and get a cited answer — fully offline with local models via Ollama, or with your own OpenAI key. Free and open source.
The Best No-Bot Meeting Notetakers (2026)
Meeting notetakers that never send a bot into your call — and the catch most lists miss: bot-free doesn't always mean private. An honest guide to the tools that skip the bot, and which also keep your audio off the cloud.
6 Best Granola Alternatives in 2026
Granola nailed the no-bot AI notepad, but it's cloud-only and priced per seat. Six honest alternatives — local, open-source, cheaper, or bundled — and who each one is really for.
6 Best Otter.ai Alternatives in 2026
Otter is a solid cloud notetaker, but it's pricey, sales-heavy, and everything lives in its cloud. Six honest alternatives — local, open-source, cheaper, or bot-free — and who each one is really for.
The Best Local AI Meeting Notetakers for Mac (2026)
The Mac apps that transcribe and summarise meetings entirely on your device — no bot, no cloud upload, open source. An honest comparison of Humla, Meetily, and anarlog.
How Humla runs Whisper on-device on Apple Silicon
How Humla does offline, on-device meeting transcription on Mac: Whisper on the Metal GPU, local diarization, and the few things that still need a network.
Local-first vs cloud meeting notes: what actually leaves your Mac
A step-by-step trace of what happens to your meeting recordings with a cloud AI notetaker vs a local-first one — and why 'private' should be checkable.
Is it legal to record client calls?
Recording client calls is usually legal — but only with consent. A plain-English look at US one- and all-party rules, GDPR, Norway, and the Otter.ai lawsuit.
How to take client meeting notes without a bot joining the call
A practical workflow for consultants to record client calls on a Mac and take meeting notes without a bot joining the call — consent, tools, and privacy.
AI meeting summaries, free and private
The summary is the part of a meeting you actually reuse — but most tools make you upload the whole call to get one. Here's how to get good AI meeting summaries that stay on your Mac.
Free, open-source AI meeting notes for Mac
Most AI notetakers are neither free nor open — you rent them per seat and your meetings live on their servers. Humla is a free, open-source alternative that runs on your Mac.