Aria · Meeting transcription
Use case
Transcribe a meeting on your Mac, with speaker names
Drop a recording into Aria and get a transcript where each voice is labelled — Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Speaker 3. It runs on your Mac, so nothing is uploaded, no bot joins the call, and nobody has to create an account.
Be clear about what this is. Aria transcribes audio you already have: a file you recorded, or the room captured through your Mac's microphone. It does not join your Zoom or Teams call and it does not capture the audio playing on your Mac. For a remote call, use the recording your meeting tool already produces, then drop that file in.
How it works
- Record the meeting — your meeting tool's own recording for a remote call, or Aria's microphone capture for a room.
- Drop the file into Aria: MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG, MP4 or MOV.
- Turn on speaker identification. Aria separates the voices and labels each passage.
- Read, correct, copy or export the transcript. Corrections you make feed the personal dictionary, so a recurring name stops coming out wrong next time.
Why people want this on the machine
Meeting transcription services are convenient and they are also the single largest pile of your company's spoken word sitting on someone else's server. A salary discussion, a client's roadmap, a medical appointment, a legal call — once uploaded, the recording is subject to that vendor's retention policy, their subprocessors, and their next change of terms.
With Aria's local engine, the audio file never leaves your Mac. Diarisation — the part that works out who spoke when — also runs locally. There is no account to create and no per-minute meter running.
| Aria, local | A meeting-notes service | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the audio goes | Nowhere — it stays on the Mac | Their servers and subprocessors |
| A bot appears in the call | No | Usually yes |
| Account needed | No | Yes |
| Speaker labels | Yes, computed locally | Yes |
| Joins the call itself | No — you supply the recording | Yes |
| Live notes during the call | No | Yes |
| Cost | Free to 2,000 words / week, €5 once | Typically a monthly seat |
Accuracy, honestly
Meeting audio is harder than dictation: people talk over each other, sit at different distances from the mic, and cough. Speaker separation is good on a clean two- or three-person recording and degrades on a noisy room with six people. Expect to fix a few labels by hand. A better microphone changes more than a better model does.
If the recording matters and it is not confidential, Aria can also send it to a cloud engine — Soniox, Deepgram, ElevenLabs — with your own API key. That is your call, made per file.
Questions
Does Aria join my Zoom, Teams or Meet call?
No. Aria transcribes a recording you give it. Use your meeting tool's own recording, then drop that file into Aria.
Can it record what is playing on my Mac?
No. Aria records from the microphone, so it captures a room well, but it does not capture the audio coming out of your speakers.
Is the speaker identification done locally?
Yes, by default. Cloud diarisation through an API is available if you prefer it and provide your own key.
What file formats can I drop in?
MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG, MP4 and MOV.
How long can a recording be?
Long recordings work; they simply take longer on the local engine. The free plan counts the transcribed words against its 2,000-a-week limit, so a full meeting will usually want Pro.
Keep the meeting on your Mac
Free up to 2,000 words a week. €5 once for unlimited, on three Macs.