Beta Software — The BuildBetter Local Recorder is currently in beta.
Features
The Local Recorder is three products in one app: a no-bot meeting recorder, a global dictation tool, and a native screen recorder. They share the same library, the same AI engine, and the same local-first privacy guarantees.Meeting Recorder
No-bot, system-audio meeting capture with live transcription, templated summaries, and AI chat.
Dictation
Global hotkey-driven voice-to-text that works in any app, with cleanup and a snippets library.
Screen Recording
Native ScreenCaptureKit video with system audio, saved alongside meetings and dictation.
Meeting Recorder
No-Bot Capture
The recorder never joins the call. It captures your microphone and the call’s system audio directly via macOS’s ScreenCaptureKit framework.
Nothing appears in the participant list on the call. Nothing shows in the attendee log.
System audio capture requires the Screen Recording permission in macOS Privacy settings.
Meeting-Aware Auto-Start
The recorder watches for meetings and offers to record when it sees one. Basic detection — no extra permissions:- Detects running meeting apps
- Monitors microphone activity
- Checks network connections
- Checks browser URLs for meeting links
- More accurate for browser-based meetings
Live Transcription
Real-time speech-to-text with speaker identification. Click any line in the transcript to jump to that moment in playback. Speakers appear in different colors, and you can relabel any speaker after the fact.Notes That Enhance Themselves
Take rough notes during the call — the app combines them with the transcript afterward to produce a clean, well-structured summary. Notes are Markdown-formatted and saved as.md files alongside each recording.
Templates
Use a built-in summary template (discovery calls, 1:1s, standups) or author your own. Templates control the sections and prompts the summarizer applies to your recording.Catch-Me-Up
Mid-call, ask for a 3-bullet summary of the last 5 minutes. Useful if you joined late or stepped away.Chat With the Transcript
Ask questions about a recording after it’s finished:Relink and Unlink
If the recorder attaches a recording to the wrong calendar event, relink it to the right one — or unlink it entirely and keep it as a standalone recording.Organization
- Folders — group related recordings
- Search — find recordings by title or transcript content
- Sort and filter — by date, duration, or name
- Preview — see transcript snippets before opening
- Dedicated pages — browse Call Recordings, Screen Recordings, Snippets, Favorites, folders, and Archive separately
- Bulk actions — select multiple items for faster cleanup and organization
- Media badges — see whether a recording is video or audio-only
Recording Library and Playback
Recordings, screen captures, and snippets live in one library, but the app gives each workflow a focused view.
The bottom playback bar stays available while you move through the app, with play/pause, scrubbing, skip controls, and playback speed. For supported cloud recordings, the app refreshes expired playback links automatically so media remains playable longer.
Dictation
Press a hotkey anywhere on your Mac, speak, and the cleaned-up text lands at your cursor in any app.Hotkeys
Three gestures, each configurable:- Hold — dictate while holding; release to paste
- Tap — toggle dictation on with one tap, off with another
- Double-tap — alternative toggle gesture
Dictation Bar and Notch UI
Dictation has its own compact UI that shows live transcription while you speak — either a draggable bar or a notch-style overlay — so you can see what you’re dictating without a full window stealing focus.Cleanup
After you stop dictating, the app can optionally clean the output:- Remove filler words (um, uh, like)
- Add punctuation and paragraph breaks
- Apply custom cleanup instructions per context (tighter for Slack, looser for Google Docs, preserve jargon)
Snippets Library
Save dictated clips into a searchable library. Useful for recurring phrases, reusable descriptions, or clips you want to refine and reuse later. If dictation fails after audio was captured, the clip can be preserved in Snippets so you can retry transcription instead of losing the spoken content.Engine Selection and Short Phrases
Choose your preferred dictation engine in Settings, or let the app automatically pick the best available option. Dictation is tuned for short responses like “OK,” “No,” and “you,” so quick replies are less likely to be discarded as silence.Auto-Paste
Clean text is pasted at your cursor in whatever app you’re in — Slack, Gmail, Notion, Linear, Figma, VS Code, Cursor, Terminal, Messages, Safari, and thousands more. If macOS permissions block auto-paste, the app tells you exactly what to fix.Multilingual Support
Pick a dictation model that matches the languages you speak. The app flags English-only models (like Whisper’s.en variants) when you’re trying to use them with non-English speech, and suggests multilingual alternatives.
Screen Recording
ScreenCaptureKit-Powered
Native macOS screen recording using the same framework as QuickTime and Apple’s built-in screen sharing. Low overhead, hardware-encoded video (H.264 or HEVC), clean window/display/region source picker. Requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later for the screen recording feature.System Audio Included
Speaker audio is captured alongside the video automatically — no separate recording step needed.Saved to Your Library
Screen recordings land in the same library as your meetings and dictation clips, so everything is searchable and organized in one place. Screen recordings can also retain audio for transcript generation later. If automatic transcription is turned off, you can generate or regenerate a transcript from the recording details page after processing finishes.Good For
- Quick walkthroughs — hotkey, record, stop, share
- Demos during a meeting (combine with the meeting recorder)
- Bug reports and async updates
iPhone App and Plaud Import
The iOS beta brings the recorder workflow to iPhone and supports Plaud device imports for teams that capture conversations away from a laptop.iPhone Recording
- Record from the mobile app and keep recordings in the same BuildBetter library
- Use on-device transcription or BuildBetter cloud transcription when available
- Chat with recordings and generate summaries from the iPhone app
- Retranscribe saved recordings when you change transcription providers
Plaud Device Support
Connect a Plaud recorder from the iPhone app to browse files and import audio into BuildBetter.Plaud import uses the iOS app’s signed-in BuildBetter workspace. If you switch workspaces, refresh the Plaud setup before importing more files.
AI Engine: Pick Your Providers
The Local Recorder doesn’t lock you into one model. You can pick different providers for each role — transcription, chat, and cleanup — from a mix of local and cloud options.Local Providers
Cloud Providers (Bring Your Own Keys)
When you bring your own cloud key, traffic goes Mac → provider directly. BuildBetter is never in the path for BYOK traffic.
Privacy & Data
Local-First by Default
Out of the box, nothing leaves your Mac:- No account required
- No telemetry
- No background sync
- No shadow uploads
Flexible Storage
- Pick the folder where recordings are saved (defaults to
~/Documents/BuildBetter Recordings/) - Set per-folder defaults
- Optional compression to save space
- Delete recordings anytime — they’re regular files on your disk
Hide From Screenshots
The recorder window can be marked so it appears black in screenshots and screen shares — useful when you’re recording a demo that shouldn’t include the recorder UI.Optional BuildBetter Sync
If you want team features, you can optionally sync recordings to BuildBetter:- Team-wide search across everyone’s recordings
- Shared summaries and notes
- Role-based access controls
- Integrations: Slack, Linear, Notion
- Cloud transcription included
Window Modes
Notch Mode
Tucks into the MacBook notch area. Minimal visual footprint, expands on hover or when recording.
Floating Bar
Compact draggable window you can park anywhere on screen. Shows live transcript and quick controls.
Full Window
Dedicated app window with transcript, notes, and AI chat all visible at once.
Hide Until Meeting
Enable this to keep the recorder completely hidden until a meeting is detected. The app runs silently in the background and appears automatically when needed.Notion Export (Beta)
With the BYO Keys setup, you can export notes and summaries to Notion. Currently in beta.Data Storage
All data is stored locally on your Mac:Themes
- Dark Mode — easy on the eyes, matches macOS dark appearance
- Light Mode — bright interface for well-lit environments
- System — follows your macOS appearance setting