Meeting notes that stay on your Mac

No bot

Nothing joins your call

Oatmeal listens the way you do: through your Mac. It records your microphone and the sound your Mac plays, so it works with any call app and nobody sees a notetaker in the participant list.¹

Recording starts only when you press Start, and the window always shows that it’s recording.

Two sources

Your voice and theirs, kept apart

Your microphone is labelled Me and everything your Mac plays is labelled System audio. Each has its own level meter, so you can see both are coming through before the meeting gets going.

If your microphone goes quiet for five seconds, Oatmeal tells you. If audio drops out, the gap shows in the recording instead of being quietly papered over.²

Summaries

Summaries that point back to what was said

Oatmeal reads the meeting five minutes at a time, then writes an overview, follow-ups and a timeline. Each part comes from the transcript, so you can check it against the moment it came from.

Pick a style for the meeting, General, Standup, 1:1 or Interview, and how much detail you want: Crisp, Balanced or Detailed. Add the names and terms your team uses so they come out spelled right. When a summary is useful, Add to notes puts it on your page.

Decisions and action items

Suggestions stay suggestions until you stamp them

Oatmeal can suggest the decisions and action items it heard. Each one arrives as a proposal in the margin, with the time it came from. Nothing becomes a decision or a to-do until you confirm it.

If nothing clear was decided, the list stays empty rather than inventing something.

Search

Find anything anyone said, in any meeting

Search every meeting at once by keyword, and filter by type and date. You can also turn on search by meaning, so “budget” finds the meeting where someone said “we’re over on spend”.³

Crash safety

A crash doesn’t take your meeting with it

Oatmeal saves as it records, so a crash, a restart or a dead battery doesn’t lose the meeting. Open Oatmeal again and choose to carry on recording the same meeting or to keep what was saved.

Long transcriptions can be stopped and resumed later without starting over.

Export

Take your notes anywhere, as Markdown

Export a meeting to a folder of your choice: your notes and transcript as a Markdown file that opens in any notes app, with the recordings too if you want them.

Already have a recording? Import an audio file and Oatmeal transcribes it the same way.

Google Calendar

Connect your calendar to your meeting notes

Optionally connect Google Calendar to see upcoming meetings in Oatmeal. Use an event’s title, time, attendees and meeting link to name or link a recording.

Access is read-only. Oatmeal reads your calendar list so you can choose calendars, then reads events from those calendars. Your Google account email identifies the connected account. Calendar data and encrypted sign-in tokens stay on your Mac.

Oatmeal cannot edit events, read Gmail or send email. You can disconnect the account at any time in Connectors.

Privacy

Made on your Mac. Shared when you choose.

• Transcripts, summaries and search are all made on your Mac.
• No gremlinlabs account is needed. Google Calendar can show upcoming meetings; Slack and Notion let you share content you preview and approve.
• Once your models are installed, recording, transcription and search work without an internet connection.
• Choose whether to keep recordings after they’re transcribed, and delete a recording or a whole meeting whenever you like.

Before you start

Download models during setup

Oatmeal helps you download its recommended transcription and summary models during setup. Downloads continue in the background while you read the introduction.

Manage downloads and choose your models in Settings. You can check that a model works before your next meeting. Once the models are installed, recording, transcription, summaries and search work without an internet connection.

Consent

Tell people you’re recording

Oatmeal records only when you press Start, but it can’t know whether everyone on the call has agreed. Letting people know, and following the rules where you and they are, is up to you.