Does Granola keep my notes on my Mac, or in the cloud?
Granola stores your notes and transcripts in its cloud, on AWS servers in the United States; your Mac only keeps a cache so you can open and edit notes offline. Granola's own security FAQ says all data lives on AWS, and its transcription page explains that microphone and system audio are passed to a cloud transcription provider during the call. There is no local-only or no-cloud setting, and leaving Granola means exporting notes one workspace at a time. That is fine for people who want notes on every device; it is the wrong shape for anyone whose policy says a vendor may not hold the record of their meetings. Audiee takes the other route: transcripts, summaries, pages and the knowledge base are plain Markdown files under ~/.audiee on your Mac, no server keeps a copy, and export is a one-click zip. Audiee also transcribes in the cloud, so audio does leave briefly in both tools; the difference is what is kept afterwards. If you want the files, record one meeting with Audiee and open the folder.
Checked September 2026. Numbers about other products link to the page they came from.
“All data is stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers located in the United States.”
— Granola help: security, privacy and data FAQs, checked September 2026
Key facts
- Granola: all data stored on AWS (US); local cache for offline editing only; audio streamed to a cloud transcription provider (checked September 2026).
- Granola: no local-only mode; notes leave via export.
- Audiee: transcripts, summaries, pages, memory as Markdown in ~/.audiee; no cloud copy; audio streamed for transcription and not retained.
- Both transcribe in the cloud; neither is fully offline for capture.
Who this fits
People choosing between the two on where the record ends up: Granola if you want cloud sync across devices, Audiee if the files must stay on your machine.
Next step
Read local-first vs fully offline, then check ~/.audiee after a test meeting.