Overheard
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Overheard vs Granola
Granola and Overheard both take meeting notes without a bot joining your call. The difference is where everything lives: Granola is a cloud service with apps on every platform; Overheard is a free, open-source Mac app that keeps your recordings as files on your machine and lets Claude read them.
you need Windows, iPhone or Android, in-person notes on your phone, or a shared team workspace — and you're fine with your notes in the cloud.
you're on a Mac, want your meetings to stay on it, don't want another subscription, and use Claude Code, Claude Desktop or Codex.
Side by side
| Overheard | Granola | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT licensed | Basic free; Business $14 and Enterprise $35 per user per month |
| History | Everything you've recorded | 30 days on Basic, unlimited on paid plans |
| Bot in the call | No — records your Mac's audio | No — records your device's audio |
| Account | None | Google Workspace or Microsoft login |
| Where notes live | Plain Markdown and WAV files in ~/Meetings | Granola's US-hosted AWS cloud |
| Audio | Kept, so you can replay any line | Deleted after transcription |
| Transcription | On your Mac, or ElevenLabs with your own key | Cloud providers such as Deepgram and AssemblyAI |
| Summaries & chat | Your Claude Code or Codex subscription, or Apple Intelligence on-device | Built in, using providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic |
| MCP for Claude | Built in, all meetings, plus actions (start recording, tick off tasks) you can turn on | Official connector; last 30 days on Basic |
| Platforms | Mac with Apple Silicon, macOS 14.2+ | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Apple Watch |
| Team workspace | No | Yes, on paid plans |
| Source code | Open, on GitHub | Closed |
Where Granola is better
Everywhere you are. Granola runs on Windows, iPhone, Android and Apple Watch, and its mobile apps cover in-person meetings. Overheard is a Mac menu bar app and nothing else — on purpose, but it's a real limit.
Teams. Shared workspaces, admin controls and SSO are what Granola's paid plans are for. Overheard has no accounts, so there's nothing to share notes through except the files themselves.
Polish around the meeting. Granola prepares a brief before external meetings and drafts follow-ups inside the app. Overheard gives you a summary, decisions and action items, and leaves the rest to Claude.
Where Overheard is better
Your meetings stay yours. Every meeting is a folder in ~/Meetings with the audio, the transcript and the summary as plain files. You can open them in any editor, sync them however you like, or point Obsidian at them. With on-device transcription and Apple Intelligence, nothing leaves the Mac at all.
No subscription, no history limit. Overheard is free and open source. Granola's free plan only shows the last 30 days; seeing older notes means $14 per user per month.
Built for Claude. Overheard ships an MCP server: Claude Code, Claude Desktop and Codex can search every meeting you've recorded and quote the minute something was said. There's also a Claude Code plugin with /overheard:recap, /overheard:followup and /overheard:todo. Read how it works.
The audio is still there. Granola deletes the recording after transcribing it. Overheard keeps it, so you can click any line to hear it again or export a section as an audio clip.
Switching
There's nothing to migrate into: Overheard starts from the next call. Install it, pick on-device transcription or paste an ElevenLabs key, and click Connect to Claude in Settings if you use Claude Code or Codex. You can run both apps side by side while you decide — they both just listen to your Mac's audio.
Sources: Granola pricing, Granola home page, Granola security, all opened on 22 October 2026. Prices and plans change — check Granola's site for the current ones. Overheard is not affiliated with Granola.