What it is and what it isn't.

Minutist is a desktop app that records meetings, transcribes them on your machine, labels speakers, and lets you take notes beside the transcript. A local model drafts the summary. You can attach documents and images to a meeting (images read by OCR) to feed that summary, name a speaker once so they are recognised in later meetings, translate a transcript, and re-run processing on a recording. The full pipeline, from microphone to finished notes, runs on your own hardware, without an account or a server in the loop.

The free build is AGPL-3.0. The only network operation it makes is the model download you start yourself. It includes a local MCP connector: point your own Claude or Codex at it and they read the meetings you choose; that sends the meeting to the AI provider, by design, and is never called private. An optional connected tier (AUD$20/yr) adds end-to-end-encrypted sync across your own devices and the Android capture companion (iOS coming soon).

The stance on privacy is stated precisely on the security page rather than summarised loosely here. If a claim about where your data goes can't be made specific, it isn't made.