Nook

Meetings, tucked away.

Nook is a local-first meeting notebook for the Mac. It notices a call, asks before it records, keeps live captions beside the camera, and leaves you a plain Markdown note. Nothing joins the call. Nothing leaves this Mac.

Download for macOS See how it works

macOS 26 or laterSigned and notarizedFree and open sourceNo account

Asks first

Nook notices likely meetings in Zoom, Teams, Meet, FaceTime and the rest, then waits for your answer. Detection never starts a recording, and macOS recording indicators are never hidden.

Stays on this Mac

Speech recognition and summaries run on device with Apple's frameworks. There is no Nook server, no meeting bot, no account and no telemetry.

Writes Markdown

Every meeting becomes a readable file in a folder you choose: summary, key points, decisions, action items, your notes and a timestamped transcript.

During the meeting

Words stay close to the moment.

The top panel sits at the display edge, so you can follow the conversation without looking away from the people in it. Expand it into a full workspace whenever you want more room.

Nook's expanded live workspace: a running transcript with Meeting and You speaker labels, timestamps, and a bottom bar with a waveform, Pause, and Finish meeting.

Notices meetings inZoomMicrosoft TeamsGoogle MeetFaceTimeWebexSlack huddlesAroundWhereby

Anything else playing on your Mac can be recorded by hand, from the menu bar or with ⇧⌘R.

After the meeting

A note you can open anywhere.

Nook writes ordinary Markdown into a folder you choose. Read it in Nook's library, in any editor, or in ten years. Edit the source directly, and Nook keeps up.

Nook's library: a sidebar of meetings grouped by day, and a note showing the gist, My notes, key points, and decisions.
~/Documents/Nook/2026-09-01 Summer launch planning.md
---
kind: meeting
title: "Summer launch planning"
started: 2026-09-01T08:08:00+10:00
source: "Zoom"
moments: 812.4
---
# Summer launch planning

## Summary
Launch scope is stable. The remaining risk is the
onboarding copy, which needs a pass before Friday.

## Key points
- Ship the first-run flow with three steps, not five.
- Keep the permissions ask until the first recording.

## Decisions
- Launch on 18 September.

## Action items
- [ ] Priya revises the onboarding copy [due: 2026-09-04]
- [x] Book the launch review

## My notes
Ask design about the empty state.

## Transcript
- **[00:32]** **Meeting:** We are stable on scope. The only open question is the first-run copy.
- **[00:41]** **You:** I can have a draft by Thursday.

  • Open actions

    Unfinished items from every note, soonest deadline first. Tick one off in place, give it a due date, or send it to Reminders.

  • Ask your library

    Ask a question and get an answer drawn only from your own notes, citing the meetings it used. Weak matches are refused, not guessed.

  • Prep briefs

    Before a meeting you have had before, Nook gathers the last decisions, key points and open actions from that series.

  • Weekly digest

    Compile the last seven days into one note: real counts, real conversation time, and every decision deduplicated.

  • Sittings and merges

    Record into an existing note or merge two. One continuous transcript, with the gap between sittings visible.

  • Playback from any line

    Keep the audio and every transcript line gets a play button. Flagged moments jump straight to the recording.

  • Summaries that hold up

    Long meetings are condensed in passes with progress shown. Figures are checked against the transcript, and you can regenerate at any time.

  • Everything by keyboard

    ⌘K reaches any note or command. Every shortcut can be rebound, and Shortcuts actions cover start, pause, finish and latest note.

  • Nothing lost quietly

    Unfinished writing has local recovery checkpoints. Interrupted recordings appear in the library with Recover, Reveal and Delete.

Ask your library: the question 'What did we decide about onboarding?' answered with 'Prototype the three-step onboarding for Friday's review', citing the note it came from.
Ask your libraryAnswers come from your notes, with the source named.
A prep brief titled Research synthesis: when it starts, when you last met, key points last time, and actions mentioned across sittings, with Open last notes and Record this sitting buttons.
Prep briefAssembled locally from the last time you met.

Anywhere on your Mac

Hold a key. Say the thing. Let go.

The same on-device transcription works outside meetings. Dictate into whatever you are already typing in, or catch a thought when there is nowhere to put it. Both are off until you turn them on.

Dictation into any text field

Hold your shortcut and speak. Settled words appear where your cursor already is, in a message, a search box or a document, while a small indicator by the pointer shows what Nook is hearing. Choose how much it tidies, overall or per app.

VerbatimEvery word as spoken.
Clean up DefaultThe same words, minus hesitations and stutters. Nothing else changes.
PolishThe same meaning, rewritten as clear written sentences.
CustomThe same meaning, following an instruction you write yourself.

A rewrite is proposed, not trusted. Every rewrite is checked against what you said. If it drifts, your own words are typed instead, so a question you dictate is written down rather than answered. Dictation never types into a password field.

Quick Note, for thoughts with no home

Press the same shortcut with no text field focused and a small pad opens instead. Speak or type, and it saves as Markdown in your notes folder, named from what you said.

Nook's Quick Note pad containing a spoken note and a checklist line, offering to make 'Thursday' a dated task, with On this Mac selected as the assistant.
  • Hands-free mode keeps listening between thoughts until you switch it off.
  • Checklist lines become real action items. A date in your own words offers to become a due date.
  • File spoken words into a meeting's notes, or promote a note into a meeting.
  • Start from a 1:1, Standup or Interview template instead of a blank page.
  • Tidy, summarise or expand a note with Apple Intelligence on this Mac.

Privacy is the architecture

Nothing joins the call.

Nook is a native Mac app, not a meeting participant. It listens to audio already on your computer, understands it on device, and writes the result to a local folder. This is the whole data path.

  1. You choose RecordDetection only produces a prompt. Nothing is captured until you answer.
  2. System audio and microphoneCaptured with Apple's ScreenCaptureKit, independently of the meeting app.
  3. On-device speech recognitionApple's Speech framework, running on this Mac.
  4. On-device summaryApple's Foundation Models when available, otherwise a deterministic fallback. Output is checked against the transcript.
  5. Markdown in your folderTemporary recordings are deleted. Audio is kept only if you ask, and can retire automatically after a window you set.
  • No Nook server in the meeting-data path. No account, no sync service, no analytics SDK, no crash reporting.
  • Detection stays in memory. It reads local window titles and app audio activity, keeps no history, and sends nothing anywhere.
  • Two network calls, both optional and content-free: Apple's speech-language assets, and a signed update check on GitHub.
  • Open source under Apache 2.0, so the whole path above can be read rather than trusted.
The one exception, and it is off Quick Note actions can run through a Claude Code or Codex CLI you already have installed. That path needs explicit consent per provider, shows a persistent warning while active, and is never enabled by an update. Meetings never use it.

Recording laws vary. You are responsible for consent from everyone in the conversation. Read the full privacy description.

Built like a Mac app

Small details, done the macOS way.

Leave the meeting with the meeting.

Free, open source and made for macOS 26. Generated summaries use Apple Intelligence. Without it, Nook still transcribes and writes a deterministic summary.

Download for macOS Latest release notes
InstallingMove Nook.app to /Applications before opening it, so macOS permissions and updates attach to one stable location.
VerifyingEvery release publishes a checksum beside the download. If macOS says it cannot verify the app, compare it first.shasum -a 256 Nook.zip