Guide
Transcribe interviews on a Mac
For interviews whose recording can't go to someone else's cloud — sources, research subjects, anything sensitive — echo99 records and transcribes entirely on the Mac in front of you, with the two sides on separate tracks. Notice and consent stay your responsibility.
Why local matters for interviews
An interview recording is often the most sensitive file you hold: an off-the-record source, a research participant under an ethics protocol, a subject who agreed to talk to you and no one else. The moment that audio reaches a cloud transcription service you inherit its retention policy, its subprocessors, and its breach surface. Keeping recording and transcription on your own machine removes that whole category of risk — there is no vendor in the loop to trust.
How echo99 records a remote interview
echo99 is built for interviews you conduct over a call — Zoom, Meet, a phone bridge, anything your Mac plays through its speakers:
- Your questions — your microphone, saved as
mic.wavand labeled “Me”. - Their answers — the other side’s audio, saved separately as
system.wav; on-device diarization labels each voice “Them-1”, “Them-2”, …, and speaker identification can put a name to a voice you interview again.
Transcription runs on-device afterwards into transcript.txt and
transcript.json, with speaker labels and timestamps — searchable, ready to
review for quotes, and never uploaded.
In-person interviews: an honest note
echo99 separates the two sides of a call because the far side comes through your Mac’s audio output. For an in-person interview, everyone in the room is picked up by your microphone, so both voices land on the “Me” track rather than being split automatically. You still get a clean local recording and a transcript — just not the automatic Me / Them separation that a remote call gives you.
Consent comes first
echo99 removes the technical and cloud barriers, not the ethical and legal ones. Recording-consent laws vary by jurisdiction, and research and journalism carry their own standards. echo99 doesn’t announce itself, so getting and documenting consent is on you — ask at the start, and keep your recording practice within your obligations.
New to echo99? See getting started, or read how local transcription works.
Related guides: Record podcast, Local transcription
Record your next interview locally
Free download. No account. Recording and transcription stay on your Mac.
Free · macOS 14.4+ · Notarized by Apple