OffReco Most meeting-notes tools record by inviting a “recording bot” into the call as a participant. Convenient — but in March 2026, Google Meet changed its behavior to treat third-party recording bots as a risk and block them from joining by default. The host now has to approve a bot manually. The short version: in a world like this, the practical approach is to skip the bot entirely and auto-transcribe on your own Mac. This article walks through how that works.
Google Meet blocks bots — the problems with bot-based tools
Tools like Fireflies, Otter, and Fathom join a dedicated bot into the meeting to record and transcribe. It’s been a popular approach, but it has weak spots:
- It gets blocked — with Google Meet’s change, bots are now refused entry by default. The host has to manually approve them every time.
- It’s awkward — an unfamiliar bot shows up in the participant list, making it visibly obvious that the call is being recorded.
- It needs recording permission — some meetings require a recording-consent flow, adding an extra step to your workflow.
- It’s hard to use when you’re not the host — in meetings you didn’t organize, whether a bot can join depends on the other side’s settings.
In other words, tools that assume “a bot joins the call” are easily affected by the other party’s environment and policies.
How to record without a bot
There’s another way: record without putting a bot in the call at all. The idea is simple — you capture the meeting app’s audio on your own Mac.
- Record system audio and microphone on two channels — capture the other person’s voice (system audio) and your own voice (microphone) separately. Any calling app that plays system audio — Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and more — is supported.
- No bot in the call — recording happens entirely on your Mac, so no bot appears in the participant list and no extra “recording participant” shows up for the other side.
- No screen-recording permission needed — since it only handles audio, you’re never asked for screen-recording access.
- Detection to transcription, automatically — it detects the calendar event or meeting start and begins recording in one click. When you end the recording, transcription runs automatically.
With this approach, you can record from your own side even when the other person is the host — without worrying about whether a bot is allowed.
Where OffReco fits in
OffReco is a menu-bar app for Mac built around this “no bot” idea.
- Fully local — all transcription happens on your Mac, so neither the audio nor the transcript leaves the machine. Transcription works in airplane mode.
- Strong on Japanese meetings — it’s tuned with Japanese discussions in mind, which makes it a good fit for internal-meeting notes.
- No bot in the call — it records from system audio, so no recording bot appears for the other side. No screen-recording permission needed, either.
- Pricing — first month free, then ¥200/month or ¥2,000/year, keeping the barrier to entry low.
Note there’s no built-in summary feature. When you want the key points, the intended workflow is to paste the finished transcript into ChatGPT, Claude, or a tool of your choice. It requires macOS 14.2 or later, and the first-run download of the transcription model needs a connection (once it’s in place, transcription runs offline).
Wrapping up
As Google Meet’s bot restrictions show, the “a bot joins the call” model is increasingly at the mercy of the other side’s environment. Skipping the bot and auto-transcribing from your Mac’s system audio lets you avoid blocking, awkwardness, and recording-permission steps — and still record even in meetings you didn’t organize. If you want to automate meeting notes while protecting privacy, download OffReco and give it a try.
Related: How to transcribe meetings on a Mac without sending audio to the cloud, or see the FAQ.