MC
Marielle Chen
@mariellebuilds · Founder, Tiny Bets
finally an app that records BOTH sides of my founder calls without a bot joining the meeting. and the transcript is local. $15 once. what is this, 2011?
X·Mar 14 1.2K
On-device · No cloud · macOS 14+
Record any call.
Nobody else hears it.
A tiny app for your Mac that records your calls and writes down everything that's said. Everything stays on your laptop — no internet, no companies in the middle, no one listening in. Just you.
One-time $15 · 14-day free trial · 30-day refund · No subscription lock-in
CallCoveFileEditViewWindowHelp
Thu 24 Apr · 11:42
CallCoveAI
Local-only call recorder
MIC ACTIVE
100% on-device
OFFLINE
Recording
14:32Record microphone
Capture your side of the call
Auto-detect calls
Notify me when the mic turns on
RECENTOpen Library
Sales with Sarah — Q2 contract
Sales · 24:18
Engineering standup — crashlytics regression
Engineering · 16:04
Interview with Marcus — Staff iOS role
Interview · 42:51
CallCoveAI
Privacy Focused Local CallCove
100% on-device
Nothing leaves your Mac
OFFLINE
IDLE
Mic
Search calls…
RECORDINGS5
Sales with Sarah — Q2 contract
Sales24:18
24 Apr 2026 · 11:02
Engineering standup — crashlytics regression
Engineering16:04
24 Apr 2026 · 09:30
Interview with Marcus — Staff iOS role
Interview42:51
23 Apr 2026 · 16:15
Call with Mom — weekend plans
Personal11:37
22 Apr 2026 · 20:08
Legal review — partnership NDA
Legal28:19
22 Apr 2026 · 14:45
SALES
24 Apr 2026 · 11:02 Regenerate
Sales with Sarah — Q2 contract
24:18 · on disk
Transcript ready
2026-04-24_11-02-14.m4a
08:42/24:18
SUMMARY
Sarah from Acme walked through Q2 procurement timing. They want the team tier (25 seats) live by 1 June and asked for quarterly invoicing instead of annual.
TRANSCRIPT
Transcribed locally with Whisper · Titled with on-device NaturalLanguage
Sarah: Thanks for jumping on. I looked at the deck you sent — 25 seats works for us, but we'd really prefer to be billed quarterly rather than upfront for the year.
You: Quarterly is fine on the team tier. We usually ask for a one-year commit on that invoicing option — does that work for procurement?
Sarah: Yes, a one-year commit with quarterly invoices is exactly what I'd take back to finance. We want everyone onboarded by June 1st so the team can use it during the Q3 planning cycle.
You: Let's lock that in. I'll send a redlined MSA with the quarterly schedule today and a kickoff calendar invite for the 28th.
The CallCove Library and menubar — every pixel computed on your Mac.
The name
Why "Cove"?
The name
Why we call it CallCove
A cove is a tiny bay tucked between cliffs — a quiet, calm pocket of water hidden away from the rough open sea.
That's the promise. The internet is the rough sea — full of companies, servers, and strangers you'd rather not have listening to your calls. Your conversations don't go there. They stay in your cove: on your Mac, in your hands, where nobody else can reach them. No website. No account. No company watching. Ever.
Sheltered
The app isn't allowed to use the internet. We made sure.
Tucked
Your recordings live in a folder on your Mac. You own them.
Calm
Your Mac writes down what's said all by itself. Even on a plane.
The difference
Where does your call actually go?
Most call recorders quietly send your conversations to their company's computers. CallCove doesn't. Here's the side-by-side.
Other apps
Your conversation goes for a trip
Most call recorders work like this:
- You record a callSame as us — but watch what happens next.
- It gets uploaded to their serversYour audio leaves your Mac and travels across the internet.
- Their AI listens to write it downA computer at their company hears every word.
- They keep a copy on their serversForever, usually. You're renting space in their database.
- You hope nobody peeksEmployees, hackers, governments — anyone with access could read it.
The catch: you have to trust them. And the company they sell to. And the country their servers are in. And the next data breach.
CallCove
Your conversation never leaves your Mac
Here's how it works instead:
- You record a callOne click in your menubar. We don't even ask for your email.
- It stays on your MacNo upload. No server. The audio file is saved to a folder on your laptop.
- Your Mac writes it down itselfYour laptop has its own AI chip — it does the transcription on its own.
- It lives in your folderOpen it like any other file. Move it, delete it, share it — your call.
- Nobody else ever sees itNot us. Not Apple. Not Google. Not your ISP. Nobody.
The promise: nothing to trust. The app literally cannot send your stuff anywhere. We can't see it even if we wanted to.
What it captures
Works with every call app you use
Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Discord — if it makes sound on your Mac, CallCove can record it. No extra setup, no fiddly settings. Just click record.
Zoom calls
Record both sides of Zoom — no bot, no guest prompt.
Google Meet
Capture Meet calls without a recording indicator for guests.
Microsoft Teams
Teams calls recorded locally, with your mic mixed in.
Podcasts
Pro-grade remote interviews with zero setup.
YouTube videos
Rip the audio from any browser tab or desktop app.
FaceTime
Both sides of FaceTime audio or video — no notification.
WhatsApp
WhatsApp voice and video on Mac, captured and transcribed.
What people are saying
Loved by founders, journalists, and podcasters
Featured on X Product Hunt #2 of the dayShow HN · 312 points
KT
Kevin Trinh
@ktrinh · Indie podcaster
replaced riverside for my remote podcast. no guest onboarding, no $30/mo bill, whisper transcripts for show notes in a minute. menubar > cloud.
X·Feb 28 842
PH
Product Hunt
Top of the day · #2 product of the day
"Does exactly one thing, does it with zero setup, and the whisper integration is faster than Otter. The no-network-entitlement thing is a chef's kiss." — featured comment.
Product Hunt·Feb 12 468
PR
Priya Ramaswamy
@priya_r · Journalist, freelance
I interview sources who absolutely do not want their audio on someone else's server. This is the first tool I can actually recommend. Transcript stays on my Mac. Done.
X·Jan 30 2.3K
HP
r/macapps
u/hughespen · Upvoted thread
Been using BlackHole + Audio Hijack for years. CallCove does 80% of what I need for 10% of the complexity. The reminder banner every 5 minutes has saved me from two "oh no I left it running" situations already.
Reddit · r/macapps·Jan 18 547
SD
Simone De Luca
@sdl_dev · Developer, Turin
Italian speaker here. Whisper large-v3-turbo on-device transcribes my Italian dev calls better than the Italian version of Otter. And it is faster. Silicon is wild.
X·Jan 09 311
HN
Hacker News
Show HN · 312 points · 94 comments
Top comment: "The fact that the binary is code-signed without the network entitlement is a stronger privacy claim than any marketing copy. Verifiable with codesign -d --entitlements -."
news.ycombinator.com·Dec 21 312
NB
Nora Baltazar
@norabaltz · Sales enablement
Our compliance team outright banned Gong and Fathom. CallCove is the only tool I could get approved because nothing leaves the Mac. Saved my onboarding KPIs.
X·Dec 09 684
IH
Indie Hackers
@tom_sharp · Featured in newsletter
Week 3 of using it for every customer call. The drag-and-drop transcription alone is worth the $15. I drop the weekly all-hands recording on it and get a transcript before lunch.
indiehackers.com·Nov 27 193
What you get
Built for people who actually use their Mac
You + the other person, in one file
Records what you say AND what they say. Saves both into a single audio file you can play back any time.
Writes down everything that's said
Your Mac listens to the recording and types it out for you — searchable text. No copy-pasting into another app.
Your Mac does all the work
No internet needed for the writing-down part. Your laptop's own chip handles it, even on a plane with WiFi off.
One click to record
Lives in the little bar at the top of your screen. One click to start, one click to stop. That's the whole interface.
Drag in any audio or video
Got a podcast, a Zoom export, a YouTube rip you saved? Drop it on the app and it gets transcribed too.
No accounts. No tracking.
We don't ask for your email. We don't know who you are. We don't know how often you use it. By design.
The cove promise
We made it impossible.
Not "we promise we won't peek" — actually impossible. We told your Mac that this app isn't allowed to use the internet. So even if we wanted to read your calls, we couldn't. Even if we got hacked, there'd be nothing to steal — your recordings never left your laptop in the first place.
See exactly how we do it- No sign-up. No email. No account.
- No tracking. We don't know who you are or how you use the app.
- Your recordings live in a folder on your Mac you can open any time.
- The "writing-down" part happens inside your Mac, not on Google or OpenAI.
- Don't trust us? Run a network monitor — you'll see CallCove never connects to anything.
Pricing
Pay once. Keep your cove forever.
$12/ year
Annual — cancel anytime.
- Unlimited recordings
- On-device transcription
- All future updates while subscribed
- Email support
Best value
$15lifetime
One payment. Yours forever.
- Everything in annual
- All future 1.x updates included
- No subscription, no renewal
- Priority email support
Prices in USD. Taxes may apply in your region.
Questions
Frequently asked
Does it really record both me AND the other person?+
Yes! Both your voice and theirs. They get mixed into one audio file you can play back like any song. Works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord — anything that plays sound on your Mac.
Wait — does the other person know they're being recorded?+
No, the call apps themselves can't tell. CallCove records what comes out of your speakers and what goes into your microphone — there's no signal sent into the call. That said: telling people you're recording is the right thing to do, and in some places it's the law (see below).
Where does my recording go? Does it get sent anywhere?+
Nowhere. It stays in a folder on your Mac. CallCove can't connect to the internet — we made sure of that — so there's literally no way for your recordings to leave your laptop. Not to us, not to Apple, not to anyone.
How does it write down what's said without the internet?+
Modern Macs have a special chip inside that's really good at speech-to-text. CallCove uses that chip to do the writing-down right on your laptop — same as how your iPhone can dictate text without internet. It even works on a plane.
Why is it called CallCove?+
A cove is a small sheltered bay — a calm, private pocket of water hidden away from the open sea. We picked the name because that's what we're building: a tiny, private place for your conversations to live, away from the rough internet. Your calls stay in your cove.
Is it legal to record calls?+
Depends where you live. In most of the US, the UK, and Canada, you can record any call you're part of without asking. In California, most of the EU, and a few other places, you have to tell the other person first. CallCove is just a tool — please use it within your local law. When in doubt, just say "hey, I'm recording this for my notes" at the start.
What languages does it understand?+
About 100. English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese all work great. Most others work fine too — try it on the 14-day free trial.
What's the difference between the $15 and $12/year options?+
Same app, same features. $15 is one payment, forever. $12/year is if you'd rather pay a smaller amount each year. Pick whichever you prefer.
Will it work on my Mac?+
If your Mac is from 2020 or newer (Apple Silicon — M1, M2, M3, M4) it'll fly. Older Intel Macs work too if you're on macOS Sonoma (the 2023 version) or later — just a bit slower at writing things down.
What if I don't like it?+
30-day refund, no questions, no hoops. Email [email protected] and we'll send your money back the same day.
Can macOS record system audio without BlackHole or Loopback?+
Yes — CallCove uses Apple's ScreenCaptureKit, the native system-audio API introduced in macOS 14. No virtual audio device, no kernel extension, no aggregate device in Audio MIDI Setup.
What's the best Mac call recorder that works offline?+
We are obviously biased, but the criteria worth checking are: native ScreenCaptureKit (not BlackHole), on-device transcription (not cloud), no bot in the meeting, and a one-time price. CallCove ticks all four at $15.
Is there an Otter.ai alternative that runs locally on Mac?+
Yes — CallCove records call audio on your Mac and transcribes it on-device using Whisper large-v3-turbo on the Apple Neural Engine. No bot joins the meeting and no audio is uploaded. See /compare/call-recorder-vs-otter for a side-by-side.
What's a cheaper alternative to Audio Hijack for one-click call recording?+
CallCove. Audio Hijack is the deepest Mac audio tool ever made (~$79) and it's worth it if you build live audio chains. CallCove is $15 lifetime and does one job: record calls, transcribe them. See /compare/call-recorder-vs-audio-hijack.