Shadow

We'd reach for Shadow if you're a Mac user who attends 5+ meetings daily and is tired of inviting bots to calls. The bot-free approach means no awkward chat messages, no separate meeting link, and no third-party service listening in the background. On top of that, the screen awareness is a differentiator—most meeting recorders only capture audio, so the smart screenshot feature that finds your meeting window and grabs it automatically is genuinely useful when someone shares a slide you need to reference later. But here's where it bites: Shadow is strictly Mac-only. If you move between a MacBook and an iPhone or a Windows work machine, there's no mobile or web app to catch up on. Also, because it's built for solo work, there's no shared workspace or team collaboration—so if your team needs a central place to review notes and assign action items, Shadow isn't it. For teams, Jamie or Fathom might be a better fit since they offer cross-platform support and shared spaces. In practice, the Skill system is what sets Shadow apart. You're not stuck with fixed outputs; you can tweak the prompt to match exactly what you want—whether that's a BANT summary for sales calls or a list of action items for a project sync. And the same Skill can be triggered as an Action Skill from anywhere with a keyboard shortcut, which makes it handy for turning voice dictation into formatted text without opening a separate app. Where Shadow really shines is privacy. Local transcription means your meeting content never leaves your Mac, which is a big deal if you handle confidential client information. Most alternatives upload audio to the cloud for processing, so if privacy is non-negotiable, Shadow's approach is a concrete advantage. If you're comparing it to Superwhisper or Willow, note that