For researchers
AI note taker for researchers
NoteOwl is an AI note taker for researchers: it transcribes user interviews and research calls on your Mac, speaker by speaker, with no bot joining the call, and brings in the interview recordings you already have.
Search or ask a question across a whole study and see the exact passage behind every answer. Nothing is uploaded — it all runs on your Mac with on-device AI models, even offline — and dictating your notes after a session is free.
How do researchers use an AI note taker?
For the conversations a study rests on: user interviews, usability sessions, expert calls and stakeholder interviews. NoteOwl takes the notes without a bot in the call, transcribes each speaker, and makes every session searchable.
Before the session
Your points, ready
NoteOwl reads your Mac’s Calendar and builds a prep page for each session: who’s coming, the points you want to cover, and the commitments still open with them.
During the session
Listen instead of typing
No bot joins the call. Jot an observation in the notes box and it feeds the summary.
After the session
A transcript, speaker by speaker
Every line names its speaker and replays on a tap; Summarize as rewrites the summary with the Research template — questions, findings, evidence, open questions.
Earlier rounds
Bring in past interviews
Drag in recordings you already have, and they’re transcribed on your Mac, speakers labelled, and searchable with everything else.
Can you dictate your notes after a session?
Yes, and it’s free. Record a voice note in NoteOwl while the session is fresh, or tap fn in your notes app, a doc or Slack and talk. NoteOwl keeps your raw words beside a tidied version, with no limit. How voice notes work on your Mac
Casual in chat
Hey Leo, quick update from the Ferncastle call. They cut the pilot budget to $90,000, so let’s focus only on the camera auto-capture flow. Can you prioritize those wireframes for Thursday? Thanks.
- To
- Daniel Okafor
- Subject
- Next steps
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for the update today. Just confirming next steps: I will send the revised pilot proposal at $90,000 by Wednesday, the 30th. It will cover an eight-week pilot focused on camera auto-capture for personal accounts only.
I look forward to hearing who your engineering lead will be by Monday. Thanks again.
12export const pilot = {13 budgetCap: 90_000,14 weeks: 8,15 accounts: 'personal',16};17
- Voice notes — audio and text kept together
- Tidy Notes — a spoken thought turned into clean notes
- Custom vocabulary — product names and your field’s jargon spelled rightPro
- 34 languages — detected automatically
What does NoteOwl write after a research planning meeting?
The decisions, and who does what by when. This is NoteOwl’s real summary of a meeting that planned twelve user interviews, between Maya Rao and her designer, Leo Martins.
Summary · Reviewing Analytics And Testing Plans
Key decisions
- User Testing Format: 12 moderated sessions will be conducted over Zoom (45 minutes each) with $50 gift cards as incentives.
- Recording Policy: Sessions will only be recorded with written consent, and recordings will be deleted after sixty days.
- Prototype Testing: Future prototype testing in weeks five and six will be conducted on real phones, not laptops.
Action items
- Leo MartinsDraft the user testing discussion guide by Wednesday, September 23rd.
- Leo MartinsBook the first six user testing sessions for next week using the list provided by Priya.
- Maya RaoConfirm the recording policy with Priya before the first session.
Can you transcribe research interviews you’ve already recorded?
Yes, with NoteOwl Pro. Drag an audio or video file into NoteOwl and it’s transcribed on your Mac, the speakers labelled, a summary and action items written, and the interview added to everything you can search and ask.
Step 1
Bring it in
Drag the file into Transcripts, or click Import Recording: mp3, wav, m4a, aiff, flac, aac or mp4, one at a time.
Step 2
Transcribed on your Mac
Speakers are labelled right after the transcript appears. Rename them, or right-click a line to assign it to someone else.
Step 3
Summarized and searchable
NoteOwl writes a summary and action items and adds the interview to your memory; the Create menu drafts a report from it.
Step 4
Take it with you
Save the transcript as plain text or SRT subtitles, or the whole note as Markdown or PDF.
Read the transcript
Got an interview recording you still haven’t listened to?
Drag it into NoteOwl.
It’s transcribed right here, on your Mac. Nothing’s uploaded.
Then you get a title, a summary, and the action items.
And every line, with who said it.
Tap any line to hear it again.
(The interview) “It asked me to upload a photo of my driving licence, and I took it on the kitchen counter.”
NoteOwl. Free to download. Drop in your next recording.
Can you search across every interview in a study?
Yes. Press ⌘K to search all your meetings, transcripts and notes by word or meaning, or ask NoteOwl’s chat with your meetings a question: it answers only from your own recordings and cites the passages it used.
Questions you could ask a study
- Which participants mentioned cost?
- Where do people say they get stuck in onboarding?
- What did participants say about the upload step?
How do you keep track of a study’s to-dos?
NoteOwl pulls them out of your meetings. Every promise — the discussion guide, the sessions to book, the consent check — goes onto one board of what you owe and what you’re owed, linked to where it was said.
You owe · Priya
Confirm the audio recording policy with Priya
From “Reviewing Analytics And Testing Plans”
Owed to you · Leo Martins
Draft the user testing discussion guide
From “Reviewing Analytics And Testing Plans”
Owed to you · Leo Martins
Book the first six user testing sessions
From “Reviewing Analytics And Testing Plans”
Owed to you · Priya Shah
Provide additional names for Leo if necessary
From “Pilot Program Updates And Next Steps”
Research commitments from past meetings, as NoteOwl pulled them out.
What else does NoteOwl do for a researcher?
Everything between the sessions: reports drafted, answers recalled from any app, transcripts exported as plain files — all on your Mac, even with Wi-Fi off.
Reports drafted from a session
On an imported interview, the Create menu drafts a report or an email; in a meeting, ask the wand for a findings summary or anything you describe.
Voice notes after each session
Record a thought in NoteOwl straight after a session; audio and text are kept together. Free.
Recall between sessions
Press ⌥Z in any app and ask out loud; the answer, with its source, appears in the notch.
Who said what
Each line names its speaker and replays on a tap. Rename a speaker once and the whole transcript updates.
Search every session
Every meeting, note and person on your Mac, one keystroke away.
Transcripts as plain files
Save an imported interview as text, SRT, Markdown or PDF, or export all your data as one zip of plain files. Nothing is locked in.
A daily review
What’s overdue, what’s due today and what came in — every morning.
Works with Wi-Fi off
Transcription, summaries and chat run on your Mac, so they keep working with no network.
Interviews in 34 languages
Sessions and dictation in 34 languages, detected automatically — Hindi and English in one sentence included.
Which meeting notes templates suit a research interview?
Research, for most sessions. Summarize as rewrites any recording in one of the 22 meeting notes templates; these five fit most of a study.
| Session | Template | What it writes |
|---|---|---|
| User and research interviews | Research | Questions · Findings · Evidence · Open questions |
| Expert interviews | Interview | Background · Questions & answers · Strengths · Concerns · Verdict |
| Synthesis workshops | Brainstorm | Ideas by theme · Standouts · Next experiments |
| Readouts to the team | Presentation | Main message · Key points · Standout moments · Q&A |
| Study planning and check-ins | Project Log | Progress · Decisions · Blockers · Next milestones |
Template · Research
“Summarize this research discussion: the questions or hypotheses explored, key findings and insights, the sources or evidence they rest on, and the open questions or gaps still to investigate.”
Does participant data leave your Mac?
No. NoteOwl transcribes, summarizes and answers questions on your Mac with on-device AI models; recordings and transcripts are never uploaded. That helps where participant data must stay on your machine. Tell participants you’re recording, and follow your study’s consent process.
| When NoteOwl connects | What it sends |
|---|---|
| The one-time model download | Model files are downloaded to your Mac; nothing of yours is sent |
| Checking for app updates | No personal data or content |
| Starting the trial or activating Pro | Your email address and an identifier for this Mac |
| A licence check, at most once a week (Pro) | Only the certificate identifier |
Recordings, transcripts, notes and memory are never sent, and every feature works offline after the one-time model download. NoteOwl doesn’t replace your study’s consent forms or ethics review. The details are in NoteOwl’s privacy policy.
FAQ
Questions researchers ask about NoteOwl
Can NoteOwl transcribe user interviews on Zoom, Teams or Google Meet?
Yes. NoteOwl records your microphone and your Mac’s audio, so it transcribes user interviews on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Webex with no bot joining, and labels your lines and theirs. Tell participants at the start that you are recording.
Can NoteOwl import research interviews I have already recorded?
Yes. Drag the recording into NoteOwl — mp3, wav, m4a, aiff, flac, aac or mp4, one at a time — and NoteOwl transcribes it on your Mac, labels the speakers, writes a summary and adds it to your memory. Importing recordings is part of NoteOwl Pro.
Can I search across all my research interviews in NoteOwl?
Yes. NoteOwl searches every recorded meeting, imported interview and note on your Mac with ⌘K, and NoteOwl’s chat answers questions across a whole study, citing the passages each answer came from. Search and chat are part of NoteOwl Pro.
Can I export interview transcripts from NoteOwl?
Yes. NoteOwl saves an imported interview’s transcript as plain text or SRT subtitles, or with its summary as Markdown or PDF, and Export all data saves everything as one zip of plain files, so nothing is locked in.
Which NoteOwl template suits a research interview?
The Research template. Summarize as rewrites a research interview in NoteOwl into the questions explored, the key findings, the evidence they rest on, and the open questions. The Interview template suits expert interviews; NoteOwl has 22 built-in templates.
Does NoteOwl upload participant recordings?
No. NoteOwl transcribes, summarizes and answers questions on your Mac with on-device AI models, so participant recordings and transcripts are never uploaded, and it works offline after the one-time model download. NoteOwl does not replace your study’s consent forms or ethics review.
How much does NoteOwl cost for a researcher?
Meeting transcription, imports, search and chat are part of NoteOwl Pro: $79 once for one Mac, no subscription, with a 7-day free trial in the app and no card needed. Buy it inside the app (the … menu next to your name → License…). Dictation and voice notes are free.
Related
- Speaker identification Transcripts that say who said what, and how speakers are separated on your Mac.
- Export your meeting notes Markdown, PDF, text, SRT, or everything as plain files.
- AI note taker for consultants Client calls, workshops and stakeholder interviews, with every commitment tracked.
- NoteOwl Pro, $79 once No subscription; one Mac; try it free first.
Keep exploring
Made for this work
- User interview templateA user interview template to copy, what each section holds, an example, and how NoteOwl writes research notes from a user interview
- Audio to textTranscription software for your Mac: drop in an audio or video file and get a speaker-labelled transcript with timestamps, unlimited, with nothing uploaded
- Search all your meetingsOne search across every meeting, dictation, transcript and person on your Mac, plus Recall by voice from any app
- Speaker recognitionTranscripts that say who said what: speakers separated automatically, and a voice named once is recognised in later meetings, on your Mac
Other roles
- AI note taker for product teamsCustomer interviews, design reviews and stand-ups: decisions and owners written down, every interview searchable, plus free dictation
- AI transcription for journalistsInterviews transcribed speaker by speaker with timestamps, quotes checked against the audio, nothing uploaded
- AI note taker for managers1:1s and team meetings: commitments tracked both ways, what is open with each person before you meet, plus free dictation
Every interview transcribed and searchable, on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
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