Shiyin
Local meeting transcription on a Mac
Most transcription services upload your recordings to the cloud. If a meeting can’t leave your hands, the whole transcript can be made on your own Mac. Here is which steps stay offline and which use the internet.
When local transcription matters
- Your company doesn’t allow cloud recording services or meeting bots.
- Conversations with clients, lawyers or doctors, or HR interviews that must stay confidential.
- You’d rather not keep recordings on someone else’s servers. Whether a cloud service keeps audio or uses it to improve its models depends on its terms.
Where each step happens in Shiyin
| Step | Where | Internet? |
|---|---|---|
| Recording | Your Mac | No |
| Live transcript while recording | Your Mac (macOS on-device speech recognition) | No |
| Final transcription | Your Mac (whisper.cpp with Breeze ASR 25, or Whisper large-v3-turbo for Japanese) | Only to download the models once |
| Speaker identification and voiceprints | Your Mac | No |
| Meeting notes and questions | The summarizer you choose | Yes with ChatGPT, Claude or an API; no with a local model in Ollama or LM Studio, or with “Don’t summarize” |
When notes are written with ChatGPT, Claude or an API, only text is sent: the transcript, your notes and glossary, and the meeting title and date. The audio never leaves your Mac.
A fully offline setup
- Download the transcription models while you’re online (during first launch, or in Settings → Models & Storage).
- Install Ollama or LM Studio and download a local model.
- In Shiyin, open Settings → Summarizer, choose “OpenAI-compatible API” and enter the local Ollama or LM Studio address (no key needed).
- Or choose “Don’t summarize” and keep just the transcript.
How good the notes are depends on the local model and your Mac’s memory. Small models can miss details, so try one meeting first.
Where your data lives
Recordings, transcripts, notes and voiceprints are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Shiyin on your Mac. Deleted meetings go to a trash you can restore from for 30 days. Help → Report a Problem only includes your version and setup, never meeting content.
Shiyin is open source under the MIT License. The code is on GitHub if you want to check for yourself that nothing is uploaded.
Compared with cloud services
Cloud services work on phones and in the browser, don’t need a powerful computer, and make sharing with colleagues easier. Local transcription needs a capable Mac (Apple Silicon, 8 GB of memory or more), and its speed depends on that Mac.
Questions
Is the live transcript uploaded?
No. The live transcript uses the speech recognition built into macOS, which runs on the device.
Where do voiceprints go?
Nowhere. They stay on your Mac, and you can view, delete or turn them off in Settings.
Which languages can it transcribe?
English, Chinese (including Mandarin mixed with English) and Japanese. Shiyin detects the language after you start recording.
Can I share notes with colleagues?
Export them as Markdown, PDF or Word, or send the whole meeting as a .shiyin file that opens in Shiyin with a double-click.