Introduction

What RecorderDesk is, and how this guide is organized.

RecorderDesk is a local-first, AI-powered desktop meeting recorder. It records your meetings, transcribes and separates speakers in real time, translates across languages, and runs a live AI co-pilot — Assist Mode — that helps you during the conversation, then turns each session into searchable, editable, exportable knowledge.

Its defining stance is privacy by architecture, not policy: the heavy AI can run entirely on-device, cloud features are opt-in, and an audit log records anything that leaves your machine.

Every feature is unlocked for a 14-day free trial — no credit card required. After that, a one-time Pro license keeps recording working (see Pricing). Separately, throughout this guide, features that need a cloud API key or a downloaded model are called out — those are additional, per-feature gates on top of the license.

What it does

Captures mic and system audio as separate channels, plus optional screen video.
Transcribes in real time with speakers separated — on-device or via cloud (Gemini).
Translates as it's spoken, tuned for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean alongside English.
Assists live and remembers — answers, decisions, action items, and a searchable archive.

Who it's for

Anyone who runs or attends a lot of meetings and wants live help plus a reliable record — without sending their audio to someone else's cloud. RecorderDesk runs on macOS and Windows; companion apps for iOS and Android are coming soon. No account is required to start.

Start here

Installation & Setup

Download RecorderDesk and finish the 8-step setup wizard in a few minutes.

Record your first meeting

Pick a source and capture audio, screen, and a live transcript in one click.

Meet Assist Mode

The live co-pilot that drafts answers and tracks decisions as you talk.

Privacy & the audit log

Keep everything on-device, enforce offline mode, and inspect what left.

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Installation & Setup