For journalists
Listen records an interview and writes it up on your own machine, with the network off if you want. No account, no upload, and no company holding your tape.
This looks like an Intel Mac, and Listen will not run on it.
Listen transcribes on your own machine, and that needs the Neural Engine Apple introduced with the M1 in late 2020. There is no Intel version, and there is no version that would work.
Open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. If it says Chip rather than Processor, this guess is wrong and you can download Listen as normal.
The problem
Sending an interview to a transcription service puts a recording of your source in a company's hands: subject to that company's retention, its jurisdiction, its security, and any order served on it. You will usually never know it happened.
It works on a plane, and there is no company holding the tape.
Written as the buyer describes it. Not yet a quote from a named user, and it is not presented as one.
Why this one
Listen has no server and no account. The recording and the transcript are files on your machine, made by your machine, so an order has to come to you, where whatever protection you have applies. The app carries its own list of every connection it may make, so this is checkable with a firewall rather than claimed.
After the conversation
Give it your attention, not your notepad. Listen writes it up on your Mac's own chip, works out who spoke, and remembers the voices, so the people you see often name themselves after the first time.
Privacy
There is no Listen server, because there are no servers. No account, and nothing you record ever reports back.
Listen ships a machine-readable list of every connection it is allowed to make, inside the app itself, so none of that has to be taken on trust. What runs where sets out every connection it can make and how to check each one yourself, and there are answers ready for a privacy or HIPAA review.
Questions
No. It runs on your Mac's own chip, offline, which is also why it works on a plane and in places you would rather not upload from.
There is nothing to obtain. No server, no account, no copy.
Yes. The app ships a machine-readable list of every connection it may make, and the security page names each one and how to watch for it with a firewall tool.
Then the recordings on it are exposed, exactly as any other file would be. Listen removes the vendor from the picture. It does not and cannot protect a device you no longer control.
If the call happens on your Mac, yes: WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, FaceTime, Zoom and anything else that makes sound.
Speakers are letters until you name them, and a name you do assign is stored only in your own library. Leaving one unnamed costs nothing.
Get Listen
Free to download, and free to record for as long as you like. Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later. The speech model is about 2.5 GB and downloads once, the first time you run it.
Written for
Nothing on this page is legal, clinical or professional advice. Recording law and professional duties vary by country and by state, and yours outrank anything written here.
