Can Fireflies record a meeting without the bot joining?
Yes, with limits: the Fireflies desktop app (macOS 12 and later) has a mode that records your computer's system audio without the notetaker bot, but in that mode speakers are labelled Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 instead of names, no separate audio or video file is saved, and Sales Assist still requires the bot. Fireflies' own help article lists those trade-offs; the bot remains the default path, and the recordings and transcripts live in Fireflies' cloud either way. Audiee never had a bot: it records from your Mac's audio on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and Lark (Feishu), and with the Accessibility permission it reads Zoom's active-speaker indicator to put real names on the transcript. Transcript, summary and action items are written as local Markdown files, not to a vendor workspace, and every meeting joins a knowledge base you can ask questions of. The free tier is 3 hours of meetings a month. Record one client call in each and compare who is named.
Checked September 2026. Numbers about other products link to the page they came from.
“Speakers appear as Speaker 1 / Speaker 2 instead of named participants.”
— Fireflies help: record without a bot on the desktop app, checked September 2026
Key facts
- Fireflies bot-free mode: desktop app, macOS 12+; Speaker 1/2 labels; no audio or video file saved; Sales Assist needs the bot (checked September 2026).
- Fireflies storage: cloud workspace.
- Audiee: no bot ever; named speakers on Zoom via Accessibility; Markdown files on your Mac; Free 3 h/month.
Who this fits
Client-facing users who tried Fireflies' bot-free mode and lost speaker names.
Next step
See Audiee vs Fireflies.