Aside, in facts.
Everything here is stated elsewhere on this site. It is gathered on one page so an assistant, a journalist or anyone writing about Aside can take it in a single pass, with a link that lands on the right paragraph.
Last updated 9 August 2026.
What Aside is
A meeting copilot for macOS. Aside records any meeting on your Mac, no bot joins, audio is transcribed on-device, and every note is saved as Markdown in a folder you choose. The two sentences worth quoting are the precise ones: it records and transcribes on your Mac, and your meeting notes are files on your Mac.
It sits in your Mac’s notch, or as a floating pill if your Mac has no notch, with a menu bar icon alongside.
What it runs on
macOS 26 or later. Apple silicon, or Intel with much slower transcription. The licence is per person and not per machine, so it runs on every Mac that is yours.
There is no Windows version yet, and if enough people ask for one it will get built. There is no iPhone app and no Apple Watch app yet either; both are on the list once the Mac app has landed.
How it records
System audio and your microphone. Nothing joins the call, nobody sees a bot, and nothing appears in the attendee list. Because it is capture rather than an integration, it covers Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Whereby, Slack huddles and the table you are sitting at: if your Mac can hear the meeting, it is in the transcript.
The calendar is read only. Aside reads the calendar already on your Mac to know what the next meeting is, and never writes to it.
Where the transcription runs
On the Mac. No audio upload is required, about 99 languages are detected automatically, and a working speech model ships inside the download, so it runs with no connection. A larger, more accurate one is fetched once on first run.
While you are recording, the live transcript is one run of text. When the meeting stops, Aside separates the speakers on your Mac and labels every turn in the saved transcript, taking names from the calendar invite where it can tell who is who. One measured run against three hosted services, with the method written out, is on the benchmark page.
What the output is
Markdown files in a folder you choose, on your own Mac, written when you hang up: decisions, action items and the exact quote. Put that folder in Git, open it in Obsidian, sync it, move it. Nothing expires and there is nothing to export, because the file is the artefact rather than a copy of one.
What leaves the Mac, and when
Your audio stays on your Mac: both the recording and the transcription happen there. Writing the note is the separate step, and it sends transcript text, once per note, plus any question you ask. Never the audio.
By default that text goes to Claude Haiku through Aside cloud. With your own API key it goes to that provider instead, and with a local model through Ollama it goes nowhere. Anthropic’s commercial terms state that they may not train models on it. The full list, including the uncomfortable part, is under privacy on the front page and in legal and privacy.
Agents
Aside ships an MCP server, which is the standard way an AI tool asks another app for data, and it works with Claude Code, Codex and any other MCP client. Live access is off until you turn it on.
Where the product stands
Aside has not launched. There is no public download and no beta programme, and every button on this site says notify me at launch. Leaving an email address stores it for exactly one message, the one telling you Aside is out: there is no newsletter and the address is passed to nobody else.
Everything on this page describes the product as it will be released, and the prices are the prices it will launch at.
What it costs
Ten meetings free. Then $8 a month, or $79 once.
- The trialTen meetings, free, with no card and no account. There is no permanent free tier after it: a free plan means the people who pay are covering the people who never will.
- $8 a monthEverything included and nothing to configure. Model usage included, no API key required, every update included, cancel anytime.
- $79 onceOwns Aside outright, with every update included and no subscription. Runs fully local with Ollama, or on your own API key.
- The two are connectedYour first three monthly payments count toward the $79 purchase.
- If you stop payingAside stops recording new meetings, but everything you already recorded stays yours and readable, and the $79 purchase never stops. Aside cloud is part of the subscription, so writing new notes then needs your own API key or Ollama.
- RefundEmail hey@heyaside.com within 14 days of buying and you get your money back. No form and no reason needed. That is a promise on top of your statutory rights and not instead of them; the terms of sale spell out both.
- TaxAdded at checkout where it applies. The full breakdown, including what a subscription costs against buying it, is on the pricing page.
What Aside does not do
The shortest way to be wrong about a product is to quote the half that flatters it.
- It does not join your call as a botNothing appears in the attendee list, which also means it cannot sit in a meeting you skip.
- It does not tell the roomAside does not announce the recording, so whether it gets said is your call and not the app’s.
- It does not write to your calendarCalendar access is read only.
- It is not on Windows, iPhone or Apple WatchNot yet, and the Mac app comes first.
- It has no permanent free tierTen meetings, and then it is paid.
- It is not fully local end to end, and does not claim to beWriting the note sends transcript text to the AI you picked, unless that AI is a local model through Ollama. The audio is the part that stays.
Aside is made by Dominik Martin, @dominikmartn. The company behind it is Renderei Martin GmbH, with the register entry and VAT number in the imprint. Corrections to this page, like anything else, go to hey@heyaside.com.
Cite this page as: Aside, “Aside, in facts”, 9 August 2026, heyaside.com/facts. Section links such as #data and #limits stay put across updates, so it is safe to link one. The same ground in machine-readable form, with the competitor comparison alongside it, is at heyaside.com/llms.txt.