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Zoom transcription without a bot.

Notabium captures both your microphone and the system audio Zoom is playing, transcribes locally with Parakeet v3 or Whisper, and gives you a searchable record after the call. Nothing joins the meeting.

What "without a bot" actually means

Most Zoom transcription tools work by sending a bot account to your meeting. The bot shows up in the participant list with a name like "Otter.ai" or "Fireflies Notetaker", and everyone on the call sees that you are recording with a third party service. Some people find that fine. Others, especially in sales, therapy, legal, and medical conversations, find it unworkable.

Notabium does something else. It runs as a desktop app on your computer and listens to the audio that Zoom is already playing through your speakers and recording through your microphone. The Zoom meeting itself has no idea Notabium exists. There is no extra participant. There is no "this meeting is being recorded" banner that you did not turn on.

How to transcribe a Zoom meeting with Notabium

Download Notabium for macOS or Windows. Free.
Grant microphone and screen recording permissions when prompted. These let Notabium hear both sides of the call.
Open Zoom and join your meeting like normal.
In the Notabium menu bar icon, click Record. The icon goes amber while a meeting is active.
After the call, your transcript appears in the Notabium library, speaker labelled, timestamped, and searchable.

If you have a calendar connected, Notabium pops up a small overlay the moment the meeting starts and offers to record with one click. You can set it to auto record specific meeting types and ignore others.

Compared to Zoom's built in transcription

	Zoom Cloud Recording	Notabium
Requires paid Zoom plan	yes (Pro and above)	no
Requires host privileges	yes	no
Where audio is stored	Zoom's cloud	your computer
Speaker labelling	limited	yes, automatic
Search across history	per meeting only	full library
AI summary included	only on Zoom AI Companion	on Pro, $8/mo yearly
Works on free Zoom accounts	no	yes

What you get after the call

Every Zoom recording in your Notabium library has three things attached. The audio file, stored locally. The full transcript, speaker labelled with exact timecodes. And the AI summary if you are on Pro, which pulls out decisions, action items, and the point of the meeting in 60 seconds.

If you opt in to share, Notabium uploads the video plus the synced transcript to a private link like share.notabium.com/r/abc123. Useful when someone could not make the call and asks for the recording. Like Loom, but for the meetings you already had.

Privacy posture

Audio stays on your computer. Transcription runs on your CPU or GPU using Parakeet v3 (English) or Whisper (multilingual). AI summary runs locally on Qwen3 unless you turn on Notabium Hosted, in which case only the transcript text is sent to our API, never the audio. Three template families (therapy, legal, medical) are locked to local processing in code, regardless of your settings.

Try it on your next Zoom call. Free, no card.

download_notabium

FAQ

Does Notabium join my Zoom meeting?

No. Notabium is a desktop app that captures audio directly from your computer. Nobody on the Zoom call sees a participant called Notabium. The recording happens on your machine, not in the meeting.

Do I need to be the host?

No. Because Notabium captures system audio, it works whether you are the host or a participant. Zoom's host only recording feature is irrelevant. As long as you can hear the meeting, Notabium can transcribe it.

Is local Zoom transcription accurate?

Yes. Notabium uses Parakeet v3 by default, which scores higher than Whisper Large on English meeting audio in independent benchmarks. Speakers are labelled and timecodes are tabular.

Is it free?

The transcript is free, forever, with no minute caps. The AI summary that turns the transcript into a clean recap is part of Notabium Pro at $8 per month yearly. Trial of any paid tier is fourteen days, no credit card.

Is recording a Zoom call legal?

It depends on your jurisdiction. Most places allow one party consent, which means you can record any meeting you are part of. A handful of US states and several EU countries require all party consent. Notabium does not decide for you. As a matter of professional practice we recommend telling participants when you are recording.