Your meeting contains proprietary strategy, client names, revenue numbers, or personnel decisions. Cloud-based meeting recorders like Otter, Fireflies, or Fathom upload everything to their servers. Their AI processes your words on someone else's infrastructure.
5cut records and transcribes meetings entirely on your iPhone. Nothing leaves your device. No cloud. No third-party servers. No data processing agreements needed.
The compliance problem with cloud recorders
Every time you use a cloud transcription service, you're creating a data processing relationship. That means:
- A third party now holds recordings of confidential discussions
- You need a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) under GDPR
- SOC 2 auditors will ask about it
- If the service is breached, your meeting content is exposed
- Client NDAs may prohibit sharing recordings with third parties
On-device processing eliminates all of these concerns.
Who needs private meeting recording
Legal professionals
Client meetings, case strategy discussions, settlement negotiations. Attorney-client privilege doesn't mix well with third-party cloud processing.
Healthcare
Clinical team meetings, patient case reviews, administrative discussions involving PHI. HIPAA compliance is simpler when recordings stay on-device.
Finance and banking
Investment discussions, client advisory meetings, compliance reviews. Material non-public information shouldn't exist on a transcription startup's servers.
HR and people operations
Performance reviews, disciplinary meetings, compensation discussions.
The 5cut workflow for meetings
- Open the recorder — tap record when the meeting starts.
- Live transcription — see words appear in real-time as people speak
- Speaker identification — up to 4 speakers are automatically identified
- Trim silence — remove the gaps between agenda items
- Export — transcript as text or SRT. Everything stays in your Files app
Compared to alternatives
Unlike Otter.ai or Fireflies which upload to their cloud, 5cut is fully offline after model download. Unlike Voice Memos, 5cut transcribes, identifies speakers, and removes silence.
Free to start
5cut combines private recording, on-device transcription, and silence removal.
