Noted blog

AI meeting notes without a bot: how it works

The Noted team — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR

Noted takes notes from your computer’s audio, so nothing joins the call: no bot, no extra name in the participant list.
Speech becomes text on your computer. Audio is never sent to us or anyone else; the transcript text goes to our AI providers to write the note. Audio isn’t kept after your note is written unless you turn on Keep audio for 7 days.
It works with calls on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack huddles, FaceTime and Webex, with headphones on, and in the room.
Noted doesn’t announce itself on the call, so tell people you’re taking notes.

Two ways to take notes on a call

There are two ways an AI note taker can hear a meeting.

A bot joins the meeting. The note taker sends its own participant into the call. It records from inside the meeting, and everyone can see it in the participant list.

The app listens to your computer. This is how Noted works. It runs on your Mac and records two things: your microphone, which is you, and the sound your computer plays, which is everyone else. Nothing is added to the meeting, because the meeting app isn’t involved at all.

	A bot	Noted
What joins the call	An extra participant	Nothing
Where it listens	Inside the meeting	Your microphone and your computer’s audio
Rooms without a call	Nothing to join	Your Mac’s microphone

macOS asks you once to allow it. On macOS 14.4 and later, Noted asks for System Audio Recording Only; on earlier versions it needs Screen Recording.

After the call, Noted tells the other voices apart and names them from the call app’s participant list where it can. A name it only heard in the conversation shows as a suggestion until you accept it.

What the other side sees

Nothing changes on their screen. No participant joins, nothing is posted in the chat, and the meeting app’s own record button isn’t used.

That is exactly why it’s on you to say so. Let people know you’re taking notes, as you would with any recording. One line at the start does it: “I’m using an app to take notes on this call. Is that OK?” If someone would rather you didn’t, stop recording.

Headphones and meetings in the room

Headphones. Noted takes the other side’s voices from the sound your computer plays, not from your speakers, so headphones don’t get in the way. It hears the call either way.

In the room. With no call, there’s no computer audio to take, so Noted hears the room through your Mac’s microphone. Put the Mac where it can hear everyone.

The limits

It hears what your computer hears. Noted runs on the computer that’s on the call. Join from your phone, and it can’t hear the meeting.
It needs a Mac. Noted runs on macOS 13 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.
The notes are written in the cloud. The transcript is made on your computer, but the AI meeting note is written from it by our AI providers: Noted sends them the transcript text, never the audio.
Telling people is your job. Noted doesn’t tell them for you.

FAQ

Does Noted join my Zoom or Teams call?

No. It takes notes from your computer’s audio, so nothing joins the call and nobody sees a bot.

Can I get notes from a meeting I don’t host?

Yes. Noted doesn’t use the meeting app’s recording feature, so it works the same whether you host or join. Let people know you’re taking notes.

Does it work with headphones?

Yes. The other side’s voices come from the sound your computer plays, not from your speakers.

Does it work for meetings in person?

Yes. With no call, Noted listens through your Mac’s microphone.

Which call apps does it work with?

Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack huddles, FaceTime and Webex, or none at all, in the room.

Is my audio sent anywhere?

No. Speech becomes text on your computer, and audio is never sent to us or anyone else. Audio isn’t kept after your note is written, unless you turn on Keep audio for 7 days. The AI meeting note is written from the transcript text, which goes to our AI providers. Read the privacy page for the details.

Should I tell people I’m using it?

Yes, every time. Noted doesn’t announce itself on the call, so it’s on you to say so, as with any recording.

Is it free?

Meeting recording and transcripts are free forever. AI meeting notes use cloud requests; the pricing says how many come with Free.

See it on a call: Noted Notetaker.

Mac dictation not working? Fixes that work

The Noted team — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR

Check the basics first: Dictation turned on in System Settings › Keyboard, the right shortcut, and the language you speak.
Then the microphone: Keyboard settings show which one Dictation listens to, next to Microphone source.
Mac dictation stops when it hears no speech for 30 seconds, so a long pause ends it.
Want long pauses, or a fix for one stubborn app? Hold ⌘ Shift Space in Noted and talk: there’s no time-out while you hold it.

Check the basics

Mac dictation is Apple’s Dictation, built into macOS. Apple’s troubleshooting page starts with three checks:

Dictation is on. Choose Apple menu › System Settings, click Keyboard, then go to Dictation and turn it on.
You’re using the right shortcut. Under Dictation, the Shortcut pop-up menu shows the keys that start it, and you can choose others. If your keyboard has a Microphone key, pressing and releasing it starts Dictation too.
The language matches what you speak. Click Edit next to Languages to pick a language and region, or add more than one. Apple notes Dictation isn’t available in every language or region.

The steps are in Apple’s guide, Dictate messages and documents on Mac.

Check the microphone

Keyboard settings show which microphone your Mac listens to for Dictation, next to Microphone source. Click that pop-up menu and choose yours. On Automatic, your Mac listens to the device you’re most likely to use (Apple’s Dictation guide).

For the microphone itself, Apple suggests:

If your Mac has no built-in microphone, make sure an external one is connected and selected in Sound or Keyboard settings.
Check its level. If your Mac isn’t responding to your voice, open System Settings › Sound, click Input, select the microphone and raise its input volume (Change the sound input settings on Mac).
Make sure nothing, such as clothing or your body, covers the microphone while you speak.
In a noisy room, or one with a lot of echo, a headset microphone may help.

When it stops by itself

Apple says you can dictate text of any length, and that Dictation stops automatically when it detects no speech for 30 seconds. So a long pause, while you think or read something back, ends it. Start it again with the Dictation shortcut.

To stop it yourself, press Escape, the Microphone key or the Dictation shortcut.

When it works in one app but not another

Apple says you can dictate anywhere you can type. Click where you want the text first, so the insertion point is there, then start Dictation.

If Dictation works in other apps but not this one, your settings and microphone are fine, and the difference is in that app. Quit it, reopen it and try again. If it still won’t take dictation, a dictation app that pastes the text for you gets round it.

Does Mac dictation use AI?

Apple’s Dictation guide doesn’t describe it as AI. What Apple does say is where your speech goes. With Dictation on, the text under it in Keyboard settings tells you whether you need an internet connection, and whether general text dictation, such as messages and notes, is processed on your Mac or sent to Siri servers.

When you set up your Mac, you choose whether Apple may store audio of your Siri and Dictation interactions; Apple may review a sample of it. You can change that later in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements (Apple’s Dictation guide).

When another app is the fix

Noted is a dictation app for Mac. It works in any app with a text box, in 37 languages.

Hold ⌘ Shift Space, talk, and let go: Noted pastes the text at your cursor.
While you hold the shortcut, Noted keeps listening, with no time-out and no length limit, so a long pause doesn’t end it.
To talk hands-free, double-tap ⌘ Shift Space, and tap it once to stop. Hands-free stops by itself after a minute without speech, or after 30 minutes, and warns you 15 seconds before.
Noted uses the System default microphone unless you pick another, in Settings › General or from the Microphone menu of Noted’s menu-bar icon.
It asks for two permissions, in System Settings › Privacy & Security: Microphone, “to hear you for dictation and notes”, and Accessibility, to paste what you said.
Speech becomes text on your computer. Dictation is free forever; it needs a free account.

Dictating into Claude Code, Cursor or a terminal? In Terminal, iTerm2 and the other terminals listed in Dictate into Claude Code and Cursor, and in VS Code and Cursor, a paste from Noted goes in on one line.

FAQ

Why does Mac dictation keep stopping?

Apple says Dictation stops automatically when it detects no speech for 30 seconds. Keep pauses shorter, or start it again with the Dictation shortcut.

How do I change the dictation microphone?

In System Settings › Keyboard, under Dictation, click the pop-up menu next to Microphone source and choose it. In Noted, pick it in Settings › General.

Does dictation work in Terminal?

Apple says Dictation works anywhere you can type. With Noted, hold ⌘ Shift Space in Terminal as in any other app, and the paste goes in on one line.

Does Noted have a time limit?

Not while you hold the shortcut. Hands-free stops by itself after a minute without speech, or after 30 minutes.

Is Noted’s dictation free?

Yes, dictation is free forever. You need a free account to dictate.

Which Macs does Noted work on?

macOS 13 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

Sources

Dictate messages and documents on Mac (macOS User Guide, Apple Support)
If Dictation on Mac doesn’t work as expected (macOS User Guide, Apple Support)
Change the sound input settings on Mac (macOS User Guide, Apple Support)

Checked 19 October 2026.

Hold one key and talk, in any app: Noted Dictation.

Dictate into Claude Code and Cursor

The Noted team — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR

Hold ⌘ Shift Space in Claude Code, Cursor or any app with a text box, talk, and let go. Noted pastes the text at your cursor.
Sending is up to you: you press Enter. In Terminal, iTerm2 and the other terminals listed below, and in VS Code and Cursor, every paste goes in on one line, so a line break can’t send it early.
Put names and jargon in the Dictionary, so useEffect comes out right more often.
Dictation is free forever. Cloud Polish, which is optional, uses cloud requests.

Why talking suits prompting

A good prompt describes what you want: the goal, the files involved, what to leave alone, how you’ll know it worked. That takes a paragraph, and a paragraph is slow to type and quick to say. When typing is the cost, prompts get short and vague. When talking is, you give the context the agent needs.

You still read before you send. Dictation gets the words down; you check them and decide.

The loop

Click into Claude Code’s prompt, or Cursor’s chat.
Hold ⌘ Shift Space and talk. For a long prompt, double-tap it instead and keep talking hands-free.
Let go, or tap it once to stop hands-free. Noted pastes the text at your cursor.
Read it, fix anything, and press Enter yourself.

Lost the text, or clicked away too soon? ⌘ Shift L pastes your last dictation again.

Terminals: one line, on purpose

In a terminal, a line break can be read as Enter, and Enter runs what’s on the line. A dictation pasted as two paragraphs could send half a prompt, or run a command you meant to edit.

So in Terminal, iTerm2, VS Code, Cursor, Warp, Ghostty, Alacritty, kitty and WezTerm, every paste from Noted goes in on one line. In VS Code and Cursor that holds in the editor too, because Noted can’t tell their terminal panel from the editor. Nothing runs until you press Enter.

Two more things change in Terminal and iTerm2. Noted doesn’t read the text around your cursor there, so it won’t suggest Dictionary words from your corrections: add them by hand. And by default it keeps no dictation history from them.

Names and jargon: the Dictionary

Code is full of words speech recognition has never heard. The Dictionary holds “names and jargon, spelled the way you want them”. Add a word as you write it, or, for a word Noted hears differently, as said as -> Written:

use effect -> useEffect
pie torch -> PyTorch
get user by id -> getUserById

Tidy-up and Cloud Polish

The basic tidy-up always runs. It drops “um”, “uh” and repeated words, with no network.

Cloud Polish is optional, and off by default. Sign in and turn it on in Settings › Dictation. It sends the text of a dictation, with your Dictionary words, to Noted’s servers and our AI providers to clean it up.

In a terminal or Cursor, also turn on Auto-polish: each dictation is polished before it’s pasted. In most other apps, ⌥1 polishes your last dictation. Polish uses cloud requests; the pricing says how many come with Free.

Tips

Say what you want, not the syntax. Add a retry with backoff to the upload function works better than reading out brackets.
Say file and function names slowly, once. If one comes out wrong, add it to the Dictionary and it comes out right more often.
Talk in the order you’d explain it. The goal first, then the detail, then what not to touch.

FAQ

Does it work in Claude Code?

Yes. Claude Code runs in your terminal, and Noted pastes into any app with a text box. In the terminals listed above, the paste goes in on one line.

Does it work in Cursor’s chat?

Yes. Click into the chat, hold ⌘ Shift Space and talk. In Cursor every paste goes in on one line, in the chat and the editor alike.

Will a pasted line break run my command?

No. In the terminals listed above, and in VS Code and Cursor, Noted pastes on one line. Nothing is sent until you press Enter.

Can it spell my function names?

Add them to the Dictionary, as you write them or as said as -> Written.

Is dictation free?

Yes, dictation is free forever. Cloud Polish uses cloud requests; the pricing says how many come with Free.

Which Macs?

macOS 13 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. Dictation works in 37 languages.

Noted also takes meeting notes from your computer’s audio, with no bot in the call: how that works.

Try it in your terminal: Noted Dictation.

Is it OK to use an AI note taker? Consent, plainly

The Noted team — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ by country and state, and they change. If you’re unsure, ask a lawyer where you and the other people on the call are.

TL;DR

US federal law lets you record a conversation you’re part of. Some states, such as Washington and Florida, need everyone’s consent.
In the EU and UK, a work call’s recording or transcript is personal data under GDPR: you need a lawful basis, and you must tell people.
An AI note taker on your computer doesn’t join the call, so nothing shows up in the participant list. Telling people is your job.
The habit that covers all of this: tell everyone at the start, and stop if someone says no.

Recording laws in one minute

The US, federally. Federal law lets a person record a call or conversation they’re part of, or one where a participant has agreed, unless it’s done to commit a crime or a tort (18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)). This is called one-party consent: your own consent can be enough.

Some states ask for everyone. State law can be stricter. Washington makes it unlawful to record a private conversation “without first obtaining the consent of all the persons engaged in the conversation”. It also counts that consent as given when one person announces, in a reasonably effective way, that the conversation is about to be recorded, and the announcement is recorded too (RCW 9.73.030). In Florida, intercepting a conversation is lawful when all of the parties have given prior consent (Florida Statutes § 934.03).

The EU and the UK. Information about a person who can be identified, such as their name or what they said, is personal data (European Data Protection Board; UK GDPR Article 4). You need a legal basis to process it (European Data Protection Board; UK GDPR Article 6), and the people you collect it from have the right to be told what you collect and why (European Data Protection Board; UK GDPR Article 13). The UK regulator says to decide your lawful basis before you start (ICO).

At work, your employer may have its own rules about recording calls. Check them too.

Where	What you need	Source
US federal	One party’s consent (yours, if you’re on the call)	18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)
Washington	Everyone’s consent	RCW 9.73.030
Florida	Everyone’s consent	Fla. Stat. § 934.03
EU and UK	A lawful basis, and telling people	GDPR Articles 6 and 13

What an AI note taker changes

A note taker that joins as a bot shows itself: it sits in the participant list, and everyone sees it. An app on your computer, like Noted, doesn’t join the call at all. Nothing changes on the other side, and Noted doesn’t announce itself, so telling people is your job. How bot-free meeting notes work goes through it in detail.

Noted reminds you. Every meeting recording opens with “Let people know you’re taking notes.” and a Copy consent line button, for 30 seconds or until you close it. The Live Answers settings say it too: “Always get consent before recording others. Laws in some places require telling other participants you’re taking notes.”

What to say at the start of a call

In the chat, paste the line Noted copies for you: Heads up: I'm taking notes of this call with Noted.

Out loud, ask, and wait for the answer: I’m using an app to take notes on this call. Is that OK?

Say it again when someone joins late.

What to do when someone says no

Stop recording, and take notes by hand. The meeting still happens. If only part of the call is the problem, stop for that part, and say when you start again.

FAQ

Do I need consent to use an AI note taker?

Often, yes. US states such as Washington and Florida need everyone’s consent. In the EU and UK you need a lawful basis, which isn’t always consent, and you must tell people. Where your own consent is enough, telling people is still the honest thing to do.

Is one person’s consent enough?

Under US federal law it can be, but some states need everyone’s. A call can include people in several places, so ask everyone.

Does Noted tell people it’s recording?

No. Nothing joins the call and Noted doesn’t announce itself. It reminds you to tell them, and copies a line you can paste into the chat.

What should I say?

Out loud: I’m using an app to take notes on this call. Is that OK? In the chat: Heads up: I'm taking notes of this call with Noted.

What if someone says no?

Stop recording and take notes by hand.

Is my audio sent anywhere?

No. Speech becomes text on your computer, and audio is never sent to us or anyone else. The transcript text goes to Noted’s servers and our AI providers to write the meeting note. Audio isn’t kept after your note is written, unless you turn on Keep audio for 7 days. The privacy page has the details.

Sources

18 U.S.C. § 2511 (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School)
RCW 9.73.030 (Washington State Legislature)
Florida Statutes § 934.03 (Florida Legislature)
Data protection basics, Process personal data lawfully and Respect individuals’ rights (European Data Protection Board)
UK GDPR Article 4, Article 6 and Article 13 (legislation.gov.uk)
A guide to lawful basis (Information Commissioner’s Office)

Checked 19 October 2026.

See how it works on a call: Noted Notetaker.