How to record a Zoom, Meet or Teams call on a Mac without a bot

No notetaker joining the call, no BlackHole, no cloud. macOS 14.2 can capture what the Mac is playing on its own; Speakhold uses that and your microphone.

Why the usual ways are annoying

Meeting bots (Fireflies, Otter, Fathom and friends) join the call as a participant. Everyone sees them, some clients object, and the audio ends up on someone else's server. The old Mac workaround was a virtual audio driver like BlackHole plus a recorder, which breaks your sound settings and still leaves you with raw audio and no notes.

What changed in macOS 14.2

Apple added Core Audio process taps: an app can ask, with your permission, for what the Mac is playing, mixed down, without a kernel extension or a virtual device. The permission is called "System Audio Recording Only" and sits in System Settings under Privacy & Security, Screen & System Audio Recording. Speakhold records that stream and your microphone as two separate files, so your side and the other side are labelled without any speaker-separation guesswork.

Step by step

Install Speakhold: brew install --cask sturzael/tap/speakhold, or download the zip from GitHub, unzip, drag to Applications, right-click, Open.
Grant Microphone and Accessibility when asked. The first meeting recording also asks for System Audio Recording Only.
Start your Zoom, Meet, Teams, FaceTime or Slack call as normal, in any app or browser tab.
Click the Speakhold menu bar icon and choose Record meeting. Or leave "Offer to record when an app starts a call" on in Settings and tap Record on the pill when it notices the call. A red dot and the elapsed time show on the pill.
Have the call. Type anything you want remembered into the meeting window; tap your dictation chord once to mark a moment.
When the call ends and the app lets go of the microphone, Speakhold counts down 45 seconds and stops on its own, or press stop. The pill shows "Notes 41%" while it works.
A notification opens the file: ~/Documents/Speakhold Meetings/<title>.md with Summary, Decisions, Action items, Open questions and the full timestamped transcript. The audio is deleted.

Who writes the notes

If Claude Code is installed on the Mac, the notes go through it under your own Claude plan, no API key. Otherwise add your own Claude key, or let Apple Intelligence write them on-device (fine for short calls). Only the transcript text leaves the machine, and only with the Claude options.

Headphones or speakers?

With headphones, your microphone hears only you and the two sides come out clean. With speakers, a desk mic also hears the other person, so some lines appear on both sides. Turn on "Cancel speaker echo" under Settings, Meetings, Transcript, which runs Apple's voice processing on your mic.

Consent

Speakhold does not announce that it is recording. Recording laws differ by place; in some you must tell the other side, in some you need their agreement. Check before you press record.

Does it work with a browser-based call?

Yes. The tap captures whatever the Mac plays, so Meet in Chrome, Teams in Safari and Zoom in the app all work the same way.

Does it need an Intel Mac or Apple Silicon?

Apple Silicon, macOS 14.2 or newer for meetings (dictation works from 14.0).

Can I record a meeting in the room, not a call?

Yes. Press Record meeting with no call running; it records the microphone only and will not auto-stop, since there is no call app to watch.

Where are the recordings kept?

Nowhere, once the notes are written. While a recording runs the audio sits in a temporary folder on the Mac; if writing the notes fails, it is kept and the notification says where.

Try it

Download Speakhold for Mac Source on GitHub

Free · MIT · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon · brew install --cask sturzael/tap/speakhold

Compared with Willow Voice · Wispr Flow · Superwhisper · MacWhisper · Fireflies · Otter · How to record a call without a bot