Questions, answered plainly
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The basics
What is Lalela?
Lalela is a private AI meeting notetaker for Mac and Windows, with an iPhone and iPad app on the App Store and a companion web app. It records both sides of your meetings without a bot, transcribes them on your device with Whisper, separates speakers, and turns conversations into summaries, action items and a searchable, chat-able archive — saved as Markdown files you own. "Lalela" means "listen" in isiZulu and isiXhosa.
How does Lalela record calls without joining them?
It captures your microphone and your computer's system audio — the same sound coming out of your speakers — directly through macOS or Windows audio APIs (on Windows, switch system audio on in Settings first). That covers Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, phone bridges played through the Mac, and in-person conversations. No participant, plugin or browser extension joins the meeting.
Which platforms does Lalela run on?
The Mac app (Apple Silicon, macOS 14.2+) is the flagship and free to download. The Windows app (Windows 10 or 11, x64) is free on the Microsoft Store, or as a direct download; it records your mic and your PC's audio, transcribes on-device and runs local AI, but a few Mac features (Meeting Copilot, meeting auto-detect, screen capture and Apple Intelligence) aren't on Windows yet. The iPhone and iPad app is on the App Store. A companion web app lets you view, search, chat about and share your synced meetings from any browser, and can record with browser microphone plus shared-tab audio when you can't install anything. An Android app is in testing and isn't available yet.
Do I need an account?
No. Recording, on-device transcription, speaker separation, local search and local AI all work without signing in. An account adds the free monthly AI allowance, sync to the web, iPhone and iPad apps, and team sharing.
Privacy & security
Does my meeting audio leave my device?
In the default mode, never. Transcription runs on your device and the audio is discarded afterwards. The exceptions are cloud transcription, which is off by default and only used if you switch it on in Settings, and recordings you make in the web app in your browser: that audio goes to private storage, is transcribed by AssemblyAI, and is deleted from storage immediately after.
Is Lalela safe for confidential meetings — legal, medical, HR?
That's the design goal. No bot appears in the call, audio stays on-device in the default mode, notes are local files, and voiceprints (if you enable speaker recognition) are stored only locally. For regulated work, pair it with your obligations: get consent where required and use the fully-local AI mode so transcript text never reaches any third party.
Are my transcripts used to train AI models?
No. We never train on your content. Local-model and Apple Intelligence summaries never leave your device at all; free-allowance requests are proxied to the model provider only to generate your answer; BYOK requests go straight to your own provider under your agreement with them.
How do I report an AI result that's wrong or inappropriate?
Press Report (the flag) next to any AI summary, note, chat answer or Meeting Copilot answer, or use Settings → Report a problem with AI content. Pick what's wrong, add a comment if you like, and choose whether to include the AI text. The report goes to Auxo Digital for review; if you're offline, Lalela opens a prefilled email to hello@auxo.digital instead. Reports never include audio, transcripts or voiceprints.
Is it legal to record meetings?
Laws vary — many places require the consent of everyone recorded. Lalela shows a clear recording indicator and makes pausing, stopping and deleting easy, but consent is your responsibility. When in doubt, tell people you're taking notes and ask.
What is speaker recognition and where are voiceprints stored?
Optionally (off by default), Lalela computes a compact voice embedding per speaker so someone you've named once is auto-named in future meetings. These voiceprints are biometric data, so they live only in the local database on your device — they are never synced or uploaded, and you can delete them anytime in Settings → People & voices.
How do I delete my account?
In the app, go to Settings → Account → Delete account and type DELETE to confirm. Your account and everything synced to the cloud are removed straight away; meetings stored on your device stay until you delete them. No app? Email support@auxodigital.africa from the address you sign in with. Full details are on our delete-account page at /delete-account.
Transcription & AI
How accurate is the transcription?
Lalela runs OpenAI's Whisper locally on your device (on a Mac, on the Apple Silicon GPU) — state-of-the-art open-source accuracy, in your language. On supported Macs and iPhones you can also choose Apple Speech, Apple's on-device engine. You can also add a custom dictionary (names, clients, jargon, with pronunciation hints) that biases the transcriber, which noticeably improves the words that matter most.
Are there transcription limits or minute caps?
No. Transcription runs on your own hardware, so there's nothing for us to meter. Record ten hours a day if you like.
What AI options do I have for summaries and chat?
Three, switchable per meeting: (1) on-device AI: a local model you download once (Mac and Windows), or Apple Intelligence on supported Macs and iPhones — nothing leaves the device; (2) a free monthly allowance included with sign-in — no card or key needed; (3) your own OpenRouter key — any model, unlimited, billed by the provider at cost. Options 2 and 3 send the text you're asking about to a cloud AI provider, so the iPhone, iPad and Microsoft Store apps ask your permission first; the Mac app and the direct Windows download ask too from version 1.3.11.
Can I chat with my meetings?
Yes — with one meeting, a folder, or your entire archive. Answers cite clickable timestamps back to the transcript, retrieval uses local full-text search, and conversations are saved so you can pick them up later.
Does Lalela work offline?
Fully. Record, transcribe, separate speakers, search, and — with a downloaded local model — summarize and chat, all with Wi-Fi off. Sync and the free AI allowance naturally need a connection.
Importing & organizing
Can I import recordings I already have?
Yes. Drop in MP3, M4A, MP4, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AAC or MKV files and they run through the exact same on-device pipeline as a live recording — transcription, speaker separation, summaries — labeled with their provenance.
Can I connect the notetaker I already use?
Yes. In Settings → Connections you can sign in to Fathom, Read AI, Granola or Microsoft Teams, or paste a Fireflies API key, and your meetings from those tools sync into Lalela automatically — speaker labels and timestamps included, filed in an "Imported from …" folder with clear provenance. Keep using your current tool for as long as you like; Lalela becomes the private home where everything compounds. Zoom, Google Meet and Grain connectors are on the way.
Can I import transcripts from Otter or other tools as files?
Yes — DOCX, PDF, TXT, Markdown and VTT files import with their speaker structure preserved when one exists. Lalela is honest about provenance: imported text is clearly marked as externally sourced, and a document without real speaker structure is saved as notes rather than dressed up as a fake transcript.
How do folders and sharing work?
Meetings live in nestable folders. Share a folder with teammates as viewer, editor or admin — subfolders follow — and shared meetings, tasks and activity show up for the team in the apps and on the web.
What are workflows?
Multi-step prompt pipelines you define per meeting type: e.g. transcript → minutes → client email → risk log. Each block can feed the next, run on any of the three AI modes, and outputs land as Markdown next to the meeting.
Pricing & product
How much does Lalela cost?
It's free to download and use: recording, on-device transcription, diarization and search have no caps. Signing in adds a free monthly AI allowance for summaries and chat. Heavy AI users can run a local model (free forever) or bring their own key and pay their provider at cost. Team plans are coming.
How is Lalela different from Otter, Fireflies, Fathom or Granola?
One axis: where your conversation is processed. Those tools transcribe in their clouds (and most put a bot in your call). Lalela transcribes on your device, never joins meetings, can run the entire pipeline offline, and stores notes as files you own. See our detailed comparison pages for an honest side-by-side.
Who builds Lalela?
Auxo Digital, a South African software studio. Lalela means "listen" in isiZulu and isiXhosa — building world-class, privacy-first tools from Africa for everywhere.
Convinced? Curious?
The download is free and the first meeting takes two minutes to set up.
On Windows without the Store? Download the installer. It's unsigned, so Windows will warn that the publisher is unverified: choose More info → Run anyway, or Run.