Trace

What is Trace?

Trace is a macOS meeting transcription app that records microphone input and system audio, transcribes the conversation locally on the user’s Mac, and outputs a markdown transcript with key moments marked inline. It is designed for people who want meeting notes without sending audio or transcripts to a cloud service.

Trace stays in the menu bar and is meant to stay out of the way during calls. Users can bring it up over other apps, record a meeting, add timestamped notes while talking, and later copy or reveal the session files from Finder. The product emphasizes on-device processing, local storage, and keyboard-driven control.

Key Features

• Local transcription on Mac: Trace uses a speech model that runs on-device, so recordings are transcribed without uploading audio to a server.
• Microphone and system audio capture: It can record your microphone plus audio from other apps such as Zoom, Teams, or Meet, which makes it suitable for ordinary video calls.
• Inline key moments: Users can press a shortcut mid-call to add a note that is inserted into the transcript at the exact timestamp where it happened.
• Live recap of recent conversation: A shortcut reveals the last two minutes of the live transcript, interleaved with flagged moments, so users can catch up without leaving the call.
• Markdown output and local files: Trace produces clean markdown transcripts and saves sessions locally as audio, markdown, and JSON files that can be copied, moved, versioned, or deleted by the user.
• Keyboard-first workflow: Recording, flagging, recapping, pausing, and hiding all have shortcuts, and the app supports remapping those commands.
• Meeting-aware scheduling: With Google Calendar connected, recordings can pick up the event title automatically and show a quiet reminder one minute before a meeting starts.

How to Use Trace?

Install Trace from the Mac App Store on a Mac running macOS 14 or later with Apple silicon. Grant the required system audio recording permission so the app can capture meeting audio from other applications.

To use it in a meeting, start a recording from the menu bar or with the keyboard shortcut, let Trace transcribe in the background, and press the key-moment shortcut when something important happens. After the call, open the transcript, copy the markdown, or reveal the session files in Finder.

Use Cases

• Capturing team meetings without a bot joining the call, while keeping the transcript stored locally on the Mac.
• Marking decisions, action items, or timeline changes during a long call so they appear at the correct point in the transcript.
• Reviewing the last few minutes of a meeting after getting pulled away, without leaving the current application.
• Saving transcripts into a note system such as Notion or Obsidian, or pasting them into an AI tool for summarization.
• Managing a record of meetings in Finder, Git, or another local workflow where the user wants plain files instead of a cloud notebook.

FAQ

Does Trace use the cloud for transcription?
No. The source says transcription happens locally on the Mac and that no audio, transcripts, or telemetry leave the device.

Does Trace join meetings as a bot?
No. The product is described as capturing system audio directly, with no extra participant in Zoom, Meet, or Teams.

What file format does Trace produce?
Trace hands users a markdown transcript and also stores session files locally, including audio, transcript markdown, and transcript JSON.

What Mac setup does it require?
The page says Trace requires macOS 14 or later and Apple silicon.

Can Trace work with other apps?
The page shows it used alongside Zoom, Teams, Meet, Slack, Notion, Obsidian, ChatGPT, and Claude, but it does not claim deep integrations with those tools.

Alternatives

• Cloud meeting transcription tools: These typically send audio to a server and may use a bot that joins the call. Trace differs by keeping audio and transcripts on-device.
• Meeting note apps with a cloud notebook workflow: Some tools focus on storing and organizing meetings in a hosted workspace. Trace is more file-oriented, with local markdown and Finder-based session storage.
• Other offline transcription apps for Mac: These share the local-processing approach, but may differ in shortcut workflow, meeting capture, or how they present transcripts.
• Bot-based meeting assistants: These are better suited to teams that want a participant added to the meeting room, while Trace is aimed at users who prefer direct system-audio capture without an extra attendee.