You can take part in the discussion without typing every sentence.
OGAD (Off Grid AI Desktop) can record an in-person meeting through your Mac’s microphone and transcribe the saved audio locally. With Pro and the required models prepared, the recording and transcription can work without internet. You get a transcript to review after the conversation instead of relying only on memory.
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Prepare the Mac before the meeting
Install OGAD, activate Pro and download a local transcription model while internet is available. Prepare a local text model too if you want a generated summary. In Settings → Setup & health → System permissions, review the permissions the recorder needs.
The current Meetings recorder captures the screen, speaker audio and microphone. It is not a dedicated microphone-only mode. Keep the intended screen content visible and tell the participants that you are recording before starting.
Place the Mac where the microphone can hear the group. A quiet room and clear turns help more than asking AI to repair missing audio afterward. For a larger room, use a suitable microphone already selected in your Mac’s input settings.
Make a short test before the real discussion
- Open Meetings and select Record meeting.
- Say a few sentences at the distance where people will sit.
- Check that the visible recording status is active.
- Select Stop and wait for the recording to be saved and transcribed.
- Open that meeting and check the transcript against what you said. Play the retained recording if the words are unclear.
If the test misses quiet speech, adjust the microphone position or input before the meeting starts.
Record the discussion, then stop it yourself
Use Record meeting for the in-person session. Keep the recording indicator visible so its state is clear. At the end, select Stop explicitly and let the local processing finish.
The app’s Keeps recording when away setting can leave recording running when you move to another app. Do not assume changing windows ends an in-person recording. The visible Stop control is the clear way to end it.
Use spoken signposts during the discussion: name the topic, repeat an agreed deadline and summarize the next step. They make the recording easier to review without requiring anyone to dictate formal minutes.
Read the transcript before using the summary
Open the saved meeting and review Transcript. Check names, numbers and specialist terms against the audio. In a room with several people, the microphone track can contain everyone; do not expect a separate reliable identity label for every participant.
The generated Summary can give you an initial recap, but the checked implementation summarizes the first 12,000 characters of the transcript. Review later discussion yourself, especially final decisions and commitments.
If transcription quality is poor and the recording is still available, choose another downloaded model using the meeting’s Model selector and select Re-transcribe. This replaces the transcript and derived summary, so save a copy first if you need the current version.
Keep a useful record after the meeting
Use the Transcript export button to save the text. Where retained media is available, Audio and Video exports let you keep those separately. The transcript export includes the saved summary as well as the transcript.
A useful final note can be shorter than the transcript: decisions, open questions and next steps. Draft it from checked passages and avoid inventing an owner or deadline when the recording does not establish one.
For the offline route, keep both transcription and summary processing on local models. A remote model selection changes the network requirements. This guide covers the Mac Pro recorder associated with OGAD 0.0.51; it does not describe a Windows native meeting recorder.
Try one short room discussion
Download OGAD for Mac, complete the setup and make a short microphone test. Then record an agreed discussion, stop it and review the transcript. Keep your attention on the people in the room, with a local record to check afterward.