A Granola alternative that keeps your meetings on your Mac
Like Granola, Oriole Voice captures your calls without a bot. The difference is where the audio goes. Granola streams it to cloud transcription providers, keeps no recording, and keeps your transcripts and notes on its servers. Oriole Voice transcribes on your Mac, keeps the recording there as audio files, and stores the transcript and your notes in a local database. Nothing syncs to a cloud.
It suits one person on a Mac who types their own notes during calls and wants the full transcript beside them. The free app has no time limit and no account, and it includes dictation into the app you’re using. If you need AI-written notes today or share notes with a team, read when Granola is the better choice first.
Free. No account. Apple Silicon, macOS 15 or later.
Oriole Voice and Granola side by side
| Oriole Voice | Granola | |
|---|---|---|
| Where speech becomes text | On your Mac | In the cloud, through Granola’s transcription providers |
| Call audio | Stays on your Mac as audio files. Deleting the meeting deletes them. | On the desktop, Granola streams it to the cloud for transcription during the call. Granola keeps no recording. |
| Transcripts and notes | In a local database on your Mac. Nothing syncs. | Granola stores them on its servers in the US, indefinitely by default, and caches your notes on your device |
| Without internet | Dictation works once the speech model has downloaded. Meetings need one more small download the first time, then work offline too. | Transcription needs a connection. You can open notes you already have while offline. |
| Account | None | Google or Microsoft sign-in |
| Free plan history | Every meeting, with no time limit | The last 30 days. Granola keeps older notes but locks them until you upgrade. |
| AI-written notes | With Pro, coming soon. Your own typed notes are free. | Included on the free plan |
| Questions across meetings | Search is free and works offline. With Pro, coming soon, you can ask a question and get an answer that links to the moments it came from. | AI chat on every plan. On the free plan it sees the last 30 days. |
| Speaker labels | You and Others during the call, then Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on | Me and Them, or real names in Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams with speaker tags |
| Training on your data | Oriole Voice doesn’t train on your data. The free app sends nothing you say or type to us. Pro, coming soon, sends text only to AI providers that retain none of it and don’t train on it. | Granola trains its own models on anonymized data by default on Basic and Business. You can turn this off. Its AI providers may not train on your data. |
| Dictation into other apps | Free and unlimited | Granola’s docs describe none |
| AI apps over MCP | Free and read-only. Works with Claude, Cursor, and Codex on your Mac, not ChatGPT. | On the free plan, your personal notes from the last 30 days. All your notes on Business. Works with Claude and ChatGPT. |
| Languages | 25 European languages, detected automatically, including Polish, Czech, Greek, and Ukrainian | More than 30 on desktop, including Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic |
| Price | Free. Pro is coming soon at $12 a month or $96 a year. | Basic is free. Business is $14 per user per month. |
| Runs on | Mac with Apple Silicon, macOS 15 or later | macOS 14 or later, Windows, iPhone, Android, and Apple Watch |
When Granola is the better choice
Granola does several things Oriole Voice doesn’t. If one of them is why you use it, stay with Granola.
- You want AI-written notes now. Granola’s free plan writes AI notes from the transcript, your rough notes, and the calendar event. You can trace each line back to the transcript or your notes. Oriole Voice’s Enhanced notes are part of Pro, which is coming soon.
- You work on more than a Mac. Granola runs on Windows, iPhone, Android, and Apple Watch, and its mobile apps are free. The iPhone app can take notes on outbound phone calls. Oriole Voice is Mac only.
- Your Mac runs macOS 14. Granola supports it. Oriole Voice needs macOS 15 and Apple Silicon.
- You share notes with a team. Granola has shared folders and a Slack integration on every plan, plus link sharing, with Notion, HubSpot, Attio, and Zapier on Business. Oriole Voice copies a meeting as Markdown and leaves the sharing to you.
- You meet in a language outside Europe. Granola transcribes more than 30 languages on desktop, including Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic, and can switch languages within a meeting. Oriole Voice covers 25 European languages.
- You want names on the transcript. In Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams, Granola’s speaker tags show who said what by name. Oriole Voice numbers the other voices.
- Your company needs compliance paperwork. Granola holds SOC 2 Type II on every plan and offers SSO and a HIPAA BAA on Enterprise.
Questions before you switch
Does Oriole Voice write meeting notes for me?
Not on the free plan. You type your own notes during the call, or beforehand on the calendar event, and they stay beside the full transcript. Enhanced notes are part of Pro, which is coming soon. They keep your own lines as the outline, fill in the details from the transcript, and list decisions and action items. Pro sends the transcript, your notes, and your guests’ names as text, never audio, and our server keeps no copy. Join the waitlist to hear when Pro is ready.
Does it work without an internet connection?
Yes, once its models have downloaded. The first time you open Oriole Voice, it downloads about 500 MB of speech models, and from then on dictation works offline. Meetings need one more small download the first time you record one. After that, meetings record and transcribe offline too.
How does it know a call has started?
When Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Slack, Discord, Webex, or a browser call starts using your microphone, Oriole Voice offers to record. With calendar access, it also offers when a meeting on your calendar starts, and names the recording after the event. Calendar access goes through your Mac’s Calendar app and the accounts you already added there, so there is no Google or Microsoft sign-in. It never records on its own. Recording stops by itself about a minute after the call ends. Make sure participants know you are recording and that you have the consent you need.
Can it tell the other people on the call apart?
Yes, once the call ends. During the call, the transcript marks your words as You and everyone else’s as Others. After the call, Oriole Voice tells the other voices apart on your Mac and labels them Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on. Speakers are numbered, not named.
How do I get a meeting out of Oriole Voice?
Copy any meeting, notes plus the full transcript, as Markdown. It pastes formatted into email and docs. To work with your meetings in Claude, Cursor, or Codex, the built-in oriole command lets those apps search and read them on your Mac. Use with AI Apps shows how to connect one.
Try it on your next call
Free. No account. Apple Silicon, macOS 15 or later.
Checked on , against Granola’s own website and help center. Prices and features change, so confirm the current details with Granola. Granola is a trademark of its owner. Oriole Voice is not affiliated with Granola.