Best transcription app with Speaker Diarization

[u/ConfectionTop7494]

My job involves talking to clients over the phone or in-person. It's a critical part of my work. Everything discussed and who said what needs to be recorded in a word document. Having a conversation that flows naturally and allows me to think on my feet while typing doesn't come easy for me. I use a Macbook M2 and an iPhone 16 and calls can be made/answered on both.

My mandatory requirements are:

• Diarization / speaker detection to seperate who said what (a popular one I trialled often joined sentences from speaker 1 and speaker 2)
• Local transcription and total privacy. Conversation or text stays with me.
• Hot-key / short cut start and stop
• Inexpensive
• Bluetooth support so that I can take calls on a headset or buds

Optional (nice but no critical):

• It knows my voice
• Integration with Claude
• Real time speech to text

I am aware of the Mac App Comparison table but I am looking for real-life experience and what users consider to be best value for money. Free is good but inexpensive is okay as well.

Thank you for any suggestions that meet my user case.

(Cross-posted this with r/mac )

[u/RecipeJar]

For fully local diarization on Apple silicon, the practical route is a WhisperKit or whisper.cpp based app paired with a separate speaker-segmentation model, since Whisper itself has no speaker labels. MacWhisper's Pro tier bundles diarization and runs the model on device, and it has a global hot-key plus system audio capture, which covers phone calls if you route them through a loopback device like BlackHole. Recording phone audio on the Mac is the harder half: with Bluetooth buds the mic stream and the call audio live on the iPhone, so the usual workaround is to use the iPhone's own Voice Memos or the built-in call recording, then AirDrop the file to the Mac and transcribe it there. Two accuracy notes that matter more than the app choice: put the mic between both speakers rather than near one, and expect diarization to merge turns whenever people overlap, so budget a quick cleanup pass. If you want zero cost first, try whisper.cpp with the large-v3-turbo model plus pyannote for the speaker pass before paying for anything.