Does anything appear in the participant list when I record?

No. now recording never joins the meeting — it records locally on your device, so there is no bot, no guest, and nothing visible to other participants.

Which meeting apps does it work with?

All of them — Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack huddles, phone calls on speaker, and fully in-person meetings. Because it captures audio locally instead of integrating with the meeting platform, there is nothing to connect or authorize.

Do I still need consent to record without a bot?

Yes. Recording laws apply regardless of the tool — many places require everyone on the call to consent. A bot-free recorder removes the awkward participant, not your legal responsibility to inform people where required.

The core is free forever with no account: unlimited recording, live on-device transcription, speaker labels, and 10 AI summaries a month. Pro ($8/month, or $5/month billed annually) adds unlimited summaries, cloud text sync, search, and share links.

If nothing uploads, how do AI summaries work?

Summaries are the one optional feature that sends data anywhere: when you click Summarize, the transcript text (never audio) is sent to an LLM and the summary comes back. Skip the button and nothing leaves your device at all.

meeting recorder without a bot

now recording captures and transcribes meetings without sending a bot into the call: it records locally in your browser (or iPhone), so nothing joins your Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams meeting, nothing appears in the participant list, and your audio never leaves your device. It works with every meeting app — and with in-person meetings — because it doesn't integrate with any of them; it just listens locally.

Updated 2026-06-12 · by the now recording team

Free, in your browser, no account needed — and your audio never leaves your device.

Record a meeting free

Three kinds of "meeting recorder" — where the audio goes

	Bot recorders (Otter, Fireflies)	Bot-free, cloud AI (Granola, Fathom)	now recording
A bot joins your call	Yes — visible to everyone	No	No
Audio leaves your device	Yes — uploaded and stored	Yes — processed by cloud AI	Never
Install required	No (bot-based)	Desktop app	No — runs in the browser
Account required to try	Yes	Yes	No
Works for in-person meetings	No	Partially	Yes
Verifiable privacy	Trust their policy	Trust their policy	Open DevTools and watch the network tab

why people stopped inviting bots to meetings

Recording bots create a social problem before they create a technical one: a participant named "Otter.ai Notetaker" changes how people talk. External guests ask what it is, legal asks who approved it, and some hosts simply kick it out. IT departments increasingly block bot domains outright, and clients on regulated teams often can't allow an unknown participant that ships audio to a third party.

Bot-free recorders solved the visibility problem — but most of them kept the data problem. Granola, Fathom and similar tools capture audio locally and then send it to cloud AI for processing, which means your meeting still ends up on someone else's servers; the bot is gone, the upload is not.

how now recording stays out of your call

There is no integration, no calendar access, and no participant — the recorder runs in a browser tab (or the iOS app) on your machine and captures the audio you already hear and speak. Transcription runs on your device too, using Whisper accelerated by your GPU, so the transcript exists before any network request could ever be involved.

Open nowrecording.com in Chrome or Edge — no install, no account
Pick your microphone (and optionally tab/system audio for remote calls)
Speak — the transcript streams live, on-device, in 29 languages
Stop — get speaker labels, an AI summary, and a Markdown export

the difference you can verify

Every recorder claims to care about privacy; ours is the only claim you can check in 10 seconds. Open your browser's DevTools, switch to the Network tab, and record a meeting: you will see the speech model download to your device once — and zero audio uploads, ever. The only thing that can leave your device is text, and only when you ask for it: an AI summary (transcript text goes to an LLM) or Pro cloud sync (meeting text, never audio).

The honest verdict

If you want a recorder that files itself into your CRM and don't mind a bot in the room, Otter or Fireflies fit. If you want bot-free capture and accept cloud AI processing, Granola is polished. If you want no bot AND no upload — provable, free to try, nothing to install — that combination is what now recording was built for.

frequently asked questions

Does anything appear in the participant list when I record?: No. now recording never joins the meeting — it records locally on your device, so there is no bot, no guest, and nothing visible to other participants.
Which meeting apps does it work with?: All of them — Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack huddles, phone calls on speaker, and fully in-person meetings. Because it captures audio locally instead of integrating with the meeting platform, there is nothing to connect or authorize.
Do I still need consent to record without a bot?: Yes. Recording laws apply regardless of the tool — many places require everyone on the call to consent. A bot-free recorder removes the awkward participant, not your legal responsibility to inform people where required.
Is it really free?: The core is free forever with no account: unlimited recording, live on-device transcription, speaker labels, and 10 AI summaries a month. Pro ($8/month, or $5/month billed annually) adds unlimited summaries, cloud text sync, search, and share links.
If nothing uploads, how do AI summaries work?: Summaries are the one optional feature that sends data anywhere: when you click Summarize, the transcript text (never audio) is sent to an LLM and the summary comes back. Skip the button and nothing leaves your device at all.

try it on your next meeting

Free, in your browser, no account needed — and your audio never leaves your device.

Record a meeting free