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How to record audio for AI meeting notes on a Mac

Tested on macOS 26.4.1 (Tahoe), Apple M3 Max, 3 Sept 2026. Updated 2026-09-03.

You can record a meeting on a Mac locally, transcribe it on the Mac, and paste the text into ChatGPT or Claude for notes. Their upload FAQs list document types with caps of 512 MB (ChatGPT) and 500 MB (Claude) per file and do not list audio, so transcribe first. Otter.ai accepts audio up to 5 GB. A one-hour meeting is 144 MB as MP3 320.

Why record the meeting locally instead of inviting a notetaker bot?

Notetaker bots join the call as a participant, which needs the host to admit them, shows every attendee that a bot is present, and sends the audio to a third party's servers. A local recording on your Mac avoids all three: no bot in the participant list, no host approval, and the file stays on disk until you decide what to do with it.

That is also the reason to be careful. A recording nobody knows about is a consent problem in many countries and a trust problem everywhere. This page is not legal advice; the practical rule is to tell the meeting you are recording for notes, and to delete the audio once the notes exist. The legal side is in is it legal to record a call on a Mac.

The local approach has one technical limit that every system audio recorder on macOS shares: capturing what the Mac plays gives you the other participants, not your own microphone. Your voice never plays through the speakers, so it is not in the file. For notes that is often acceptable, because the transcript still contains what everyone else said and your points appear in their replies. If your own words must be in the record, the meeting app's built-in recorder or a second mic take is needed, as described in recording both sides of a call on a Mac.

How do I record a Zoom, Meet or Teams meeting on a Mac for notes?

Tested sequence with AirCheck on macOS 26.4.1; the same logic applies to OBS or a BlackHole setup.

  1. Select System Audio. On first use, grant Screen Recording permission under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording. This is Apple's ScreenCaptureKit path; no virtual driver, nothing in Audio MIDI Setup, and nothing visible to the meeting app.
  2. Choose MP3 320 as the export. Transcription tools do not gain anything from WAV, and a one-hour meeting is 144 MB instead of 660 MB at 16-bit WAV.
  3. Press record before you join, so the first minute is not lost. Announce the recording.
  4. Stop after the call. The file is in ~/Music/AirCheck, named with the date and time.

Standard meeting apps (Zoom, Teams, Meet, Discord) come through ScreenCaptureKit normally; the exception is DRM-protected media, which is not a meeting concern. If the audio stream stalls mid call, AirCheck's watchdog restarts capture into the same file after 5 seconds without audio and the UI shows "Audio input stalled, reconnecting", so the take is not split. For Google Meet where you are not the host, the same method applies; see recording a Google Meet on a Mac without being host.

What file size and format do ChatGPT, Claude and Otter accept?

Quoted from the vendors' own help pages, fetched 3 September 2026.

So the pipeline is: record locally, transcribe (MacWhisper free tier or Whisper, both on the Mac), then send text to the model. A one-hour meeting transcript is plain text, well under 1 MB, far below any cap. The audio file sizes only matter for storage: 144 MB per hour as MP3 320, 660 MB as 16-bit 48 kHz WAV, 990 MB at 24-bit.

How do I keep the recording private?

Three choices decide who sees the meeting audio.

  1. Where it is recorded: a local recorder writes to your disk only. AirCheck, QuickTime, OBS and BlackHole-based setups all do this. Cloud recorders and bots upload by design.
  2. Where it is transcribed: MacWhisper states that processing happens locally without data leaving the Mac, and the open-source Whisper model runs the same way. Otter.ai processes on its servers. Apple's Voice Memos and Notes transcribe on device, but they record the mic, not the call.
  3. What you send to the model: the transcript, and only the parts needed. Names and figures can be removed from the text before pasting; they cannot be removed from an audio upload.

Delete the audio once the notes are approved. A folder of meeting recordings is a liability with no upside after the summary exists. If the meeting was a lecture or training rather than a discussion, the same pipeline applies; see how to transcribe audio on a Mac.

All files uploaded to a GPT or a ChatGPT conversation have a hard limit of 512MB per file.

OpenAI Help Center, File Uploads FAQ

Getting a Mac meeting recording into an AI notes tool (vendor limits, September 2026)

ToolAccepts audio uploadPer-file capFree-tier limitProcesses on the Mac
ChatGPTnot listed (text, spreadsheets, presentations, documents)512 MB3 file uploads per dayno
Claudenot listed (PDF, DOCX, TXT and similar)500 MB chat, 30 MB projectnot stated on the pageno
Otter.aiyes (MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, OGG, WMA, video)5 GB30 min per file, 3 imports, 300 min per monthno
MacWhisper (free)yes (MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, OPUS, MOV, MP4)none documentedtranscription free, Pro 64 eurosyes
Whisper (open source)yesnonefree, MIT licenseyes

Limits change; each row is quoted from the vendor page in the sources list.

Where AirCheck fits

AirCheck ($39, macOS 14 or newer) is the local recorder in this pipeline. It captures the meeting's playback through ScreenCaptureKit without a bot, a driver or host permission, exports MP3 320 that MacWhisper opens directly, and rides through an AirPods reconnect mid call by restarting capture into the same file. It records one source, so your own mic is a separate take if it must be in the transcript.

When you do not need it: If you host the meeting and everyone consents, Zoom or Teams recording captures both sides in one file for free. If you already pay for Otter, its recorder and import do the whole job without a separate app.

AirCheck records what your Mac plays, or any input, to one file. $39 once.

Buy AirCheck for $39

macOS 14 or newer. One-off payment. Fourteen-day refund, no questions asked.

Questions people ask

Can I upload a meeting recording straight to ChatGPT?

The File Uploads FAQ lists text, spreadsheet, presentation and document files under a 512 MB per-file cap and does not list audio. Transcribe on the Mac first, then paste the text or upload it as TXT.

How to record a meeting with audio on Mac?

Use a system audio recorder for the other participants, or the meeting app's own recorder for both sides. QuickTime records the mic only, so it cannot capture a call. AirCheck, OBS and BlackHole-based setups can.

Will the other participants know I am recording?

Not from the software: a system audio recorder is invisible to Zoom, Meet and Teams, and no indicator appears for the other participants. Tell them anyway, at the start and on the recording. Consent rules apply regardless of whether the app shows a recording icon.

What is the best format for meeting audio that will be transcribed?

MP3 320 kbps: 2.4 MB per minute, accepted by every transcriber, and speech loses nothing audible. A one-hour meeting is 144 MB. Use WAV 16-bit only if you will edit the audio before transcribing it.

Sources

Hannes Hennerbichler builds AirCheck and records his own DJ sets with it through a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6. Every step on this page was run on the macOS version stated above. Drafted with AI assistance, checked and edited by the author. About