Standby
The short version.
Standby is free, open-source software that runs on your Mac and works with your own Claude Code. Here's what that means for you.
Free and open source
Standby is released under the MIT License. You can use it, change it and share it, for free, including at work. The code is all on GitHub.
No warranty
Standby is provided as it is, without any warranty. Transcripts, speaker names, summaries and what Claude does with them can be wrong: check anything that matters before you rely on it. The people who build Standby aren't liable for how it's used, as the license says in full.
Your Claude Code, your account
Standby doesn't come with its own AI. It works through the Claude Code you've already installed and signed in to, so using it is covered by the terms of your Claude account, API key or cloud provider, and what it does counts toward your plan or usage like any Claude Code session. Standby's Settings show how much it used.
What stays on your Mac
Speech-to-text, speaker labels and Standby's voice run on your Mac. Audio and voice prints never leave it. A meeting's transcript and what you say on a call go to your own Claude Code as text, along with anything you paste or attach, and Claude Code talks to its model provider as it always does; Claude Code and its tools handle data their own way. Standby has no servers and collects nothing about you. The first install downloads the models from the places listed below, and that's all.
Standby learns the voices you name, and your own voice from your calls, to tell people apart. These voice prints stay on your Mac; you can turn this off or forget them in Settings > Recording. Standalone dictation isn't kept as a session; when it uses a running recorder, temporary audio and text files can remain after an interruption. Dictated questions within a meeting or call stay in that session.
Routine logs omit conversation text. Optional debug call traces contain words and replies in the session's folder. Older logs can still contain conversation text; review logs and traces before sharing them, since diagnostics can also include local paths, device names and error details. Deleting a meeting or call removes its session files, Standby's delivered copies and its debug trace. It doesn't erase global diagnostic logs, what was already sent to Claude Code, or exports.
Recording people is your responsibility
When you transcribe a meeting or a call, tell the people in it, and follow the rules that apply where you and they are. In many places everyone in a conversation has to agree to it being recorded or transcribed.
Not affiliated with Anthropic
Standby is an independent project. It isn't made, endorsed or supported by Anthropic. Claude and Claude Code are trademarks of Anthropic, used here only to say what Standby works with.
The models Standby uses
Standby downloads open models, each under its own license: NVIDIA's Parakeet for speech-to-text, NVIDIA's Nemotron-3-Diarization (in Fluid Inference's Core ML build, under the OpenMDW License 1.1) and TitaNet for telling voices apart, Whisper for a better transcript afterwards, Smart Turn (BSD-2) and Silero VAD (MIT) for turn-taking, and Kyutai's Pocket TTS (CC BY 4.0) for Standby's voice. The README lists each one with its source.
Questions
Open an issue on GitHub. If these terms change, this page and the repository will show it.