Subtitles · Live captions and meeting notes
Granola takes the notes.
This puts the words on screen.
An AI notepad writes the meeting up afterwards. Subtitles captions it while it is happening and then forgets it entirely. They are different jobs at different moments, which is why the honest answer to "which one" is usually both.
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Granola writes the meeting up afterwards. This puts the words on screen while it is still going on, above the notes Granola is taking.
Hold ⇧ and drag the captions to move them, as you would in the app.
Hold ⌥ to rewind, and the last few boxes stack back up.
Click in the menu bar: items marked Try all work in this demo.
Subtitles will never write you a note
Worth saying before anything else, because it decides whether the rest of the page is any use to you. Subtitles produces no summary and no notes. When the audio stops it offers to save a plain transcript to a file, and nothing is written to disk unless you do. Holding ⌥ rewinds: the captions stack back up on screen, as far back as you have set, which is how you catch the line you looked away from, and ⌥F searches them; they are held in memory, they go when you let go, and they are gone entirely when you quit.
So if what you need is the meeting written up, you need a notepad, and Granola is a good one. Nothing here competes with that. What follows is about the other half of the problem, which notepads are not built for: following the conversation while it is still going on.
Plenty of people already run both. Colleagues of mine at an international company keep a notetaker for the write-up and this for the words as they are said, and neither app knows the other is there.
A transcript you have to go and look at
Granola can show you a live transcript during the meeting. It is a panel inside the note, opened from a small waveform button by the chat bar or by clicking the audio indicator. That is fine while Granola is the window you are looking at.
It stops being fine the moment you are working. Switch to the document under discussion, or your editor, or the browser tab someone just asked about, and what follows you across is an indicator you click to go back to the note. Reading the last sentence means leaving the thing you switched to in order to read it, which is the opposite of what you needed when you switched.
The overlay here is above every window and passes clicks straight through, so it is on screen wherever you are, and you never interact with it at all. Text size, position and how long a line holds are yours to set, because it is meant to be read continuously rather than consulted. It also fades away under your pointer, so the document you switched to is never the thing it is covering, and when you do miss a sentence, ⌥ rewinds the last few boxes right where you already are instead of sending you to a panel in another window.
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Granola and Subtitles, side by side
Granola's column is what its documentation and pricing say. Two things that are commonly assumed to be differences are not: neither of these sends a bot into your call, and neither records the audio.
| What is compared | Granola | Subtitles |
|---|---|---|
| What you end up with | A written note, and a searchable history | Nothing. The line is on screen and then it is gone |
| When you read it | Afterwards | While it is being said |
| Where it appears | A transcript panel inside the note | An overlay above every window, click-through |
| If you switch apps | An indicator you click to go back to the note | The captions stay where you put them |
| If you missed a line | Scroll the transcript panel, back inside the note | Hold ⌥ to rewind where you are, with ⌥F to search the boxes |
| Your microphone | Transcribed too, as the other half of the conversation | Only if you choose it, in place of the call |
| What leaves the Mac | The transcript, for the notes to be written | A version check and, with a key, a monthly key check. Never the audio |
| Model training | On by default, with an opt-out in settings | There is nothing to train on |
| Price | Free tier with a capped history, then $14 per user per month | Free for 7 days, then $19 once |
The privacy difference is narrower than you think, and real
- Granola does not use a bot either. It captures your computer's system audio, the same approach taken here, so nothing joins the call and nobody sees a participant that should not be there. This is the thing people expect to be a difference, and it is not one.
- It transcribes your microphone as well. It has to: a note of a meeting where only the other people speak would be half a note. This reads the call, not you: the microphone is a separate choice in Listen To that replaces the call rather than joining it, so on a call it only ever shows you the other side.
- The transcript leaves the machine, because a model writes the note. That is the trade a notepad makes to be useful, and Granola trains on your data by default with an opt-out in settings on every plan. Here there is nothing to send and nothing to train on: the audio is captioned and discarded, nothing is recorded, and after the one-time model download the only calls left are a version check you can decline and a monthly check of your license key.
- The rest of the category does send a bot. Otter, Fireflies and most of the others join as a participant, visible to everyone in the meeting and disallowed outright in plenty of companies. Granola is the unusual one here, and it is worth saying so on a page that is comparing against it.
Questions about running both
- Does this replace Granola?
- No, and it is not trying to. Granola writes the meeting up afterwards and keeps a history you can search. This keeps nothing unless you ask, and then only a plain transcript on your Mac, with no summary. If you want notes, you want a notepad, and running both is the point of this page.
- Why not just read Granola's live transcript?
- Because it lives in Granola. The transcript is a panel inside the note, and once you move to your editor or the document under discussion, what follows you is an indicator you click to go back. Reading it means leaving whatever you switched to. An overlay that sits above every window and takes no clicks is a different thing to do with the same audio.
- Does Granola use a bot?
- No, and neither does this. Granola captures your computer's system audio the same way, so nothing joins the call in either case. That part is not a difference between them.
- Does Granola record the audio?
- No. It transcribes rather than recording, so there is no audio to go back to if the transcript is wrong. That is also true here, where the only transcript is one you choose to save.
- So what is actually different about the privacy?
- Two things. Granola transcribes your microphone as well as the call, because it needs both halves to write a useful note; this reads the call, and opens the microphone only if you choose it in Listen To, in place of the call rather than alongside it. And Granola's transcript leaves your Mac so a model can write the note, then trains on your data unless you opt out in settings. Nothing leaves here, so there is nothing to opt out of.
- What about Otter, Fireflies and the rest?
- Most of that category joins the call as a participant, which everyone in the meeting can see and which plenty of workplaces do not allow. Granola is unusual in not doing that. Either way, none of them put the words in front of you while you are working.
The same overlay, elsewhere
Videos with no subtitles
Subtitles over a film, a stream or a tab that never had a track.
Learning a language
Subtitles in the language being spoken, and translation when you want it.
Deaf and hard of hearing
Captions on every app, without asking anyone to switch them on.
Zoom
Captions that do not wait for the host to switch anything on.
Microsoft Teams
Captions that do not depend on what your tenant’s admin allows.
Google Meet
On-device captions, whatever Workspace tier you are on.
Slack huddles
Captions with no workspace app to get approved.
vs Apple Live Captions
macOS has this built in and free. Where it stops being enough.
Let the notepad write it up. Read it now.
Until 31 October: $9 instead of $19 · 14-day refund
14-day refund, no questions asked
Free for 7 days, then $19 once, every future update included ·
macOS 14.2 or later · Apple silicon
Unlimited live captions, for as long as you own the Mac. No minutes to
buy, no account, no subscription.