Quick start
Install Steno and make your first recording in five minutes.
Privacy
How on-device processing works and what never leaves your Mac.
Models
Choose the right Whisper and Ollama models for your hardware.
Compare
Local vs cloud meeting AI — trade-offs and when to use each.
Changelog
See what’s new in the latest Steno releases.
What is Steno?
Steno is a macOS app that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings using AI models that run entirely on your device. There are no cloud uploads and no accounts required — your recordings, transcripts, and summaries are never sent anywhere by default. Steno checks for updates periodically and sends anonymous usage analytics (no meeting content, can be turned off in Settings); all recording, transcription, and summarization stays on your device by default. Your audio, transcripts, and summaries are stored locally in~/Library/Application Support/stenoai/.
How it works
1
Record
Capture microphone audio, system audio (both sides of a call), or both.
2
Transcribe
Whisper runs locally to produce a verbatim transcript with speaker labels.
3
Summarize
A local language model generates structured notes: summary, topics, action items.
4
Query
Ask questions about any saved note from the inline ask bar.