MurmelaSession notes
stay in the room.
Hold one key between clients, say the note, and it lands in your record where your cursor is. Speech recognition runs entirely on your Mac. No cloud, no account, no telemetry, no subscription. Not even as an option.
Bytes sent during this dictation: 0.
Between clients, and after.
Four things Murmela does for a practice. All of them on your Mac, none of them on a server.
Session notes between clients
Hold the fn key, say the note, let go. It lands in your notes or your record, in whatever app you already use. Punctuation is handled; nothing else is changed.
Supervision and recorded sessions Pro
Drop a recording in. Up to six hours, transcribed on your Mac. With Pro, speaker labels show who said what, and Speaker 1 can be renamed to Supervisor. Export as text or subtitles.
History you can switch off
One switch, Save transcripts to the Library, decides whether anything is kept. On, every note is searchable and you can delete any entry. Off, nothing is stored. Where things live on your Mac is documented on the Security and data page.
Teach it your terms
Modalities, scales and names come out spelled the way you wrote them. The list stays on your Mac.
On HIPAA and confidentiality. No client data leaves your Mac, so there is no third-party processor and no business associate agreement to sign with one. Whether that satisfies your obligations is your practice's own compliance decision. We make no certification claims. We give you an architecture you can verify.
The honest trade: your text arrives a second or two after you let go, there is no AI rewriting, and it runs on Apple-silicon Macs only.
Good to know.
Can it transcribe my telehealth sessions?
Yes. Murmela records your microphone and the call's sound on your Mac, from a call app or a call in your browser, and transcribes it there. No bot joins and nothing is uploaded. Your voice is labelled “You” and your client is the other side. Recording a call's sound needs macOS 14.4 or later. Ask your client's consent first; in many places the law requires it. A recording made elsewhere can be dropped in too.
I'm covered by HIPAA. Do you sign a business associate agreement?
There is nothing to sign, because there is no business associate: no patient or client data reaches us or anyone else. Whether that satisfies your obligations is your practice's own compliance decision. We make no certification claims.
Does it work on an 8 GB MacBook Air?
Yes. Dictation with every speech model and the compact translation model run on 8 GB. The best translation model wants 16 GB, and VibeVoice, the most accurate engine for long recordings, 18 GB or more.
Can I keep nothing on disk?
Switch off Save transcripts to the Library and nothing is kept. Leave it on and you can delete any entry. Where Murmela stores things, and how to remove them, is on the Security and data page.
Does it change my wording?
No. Punctuation is handled; nothing else is changed. Vocabulary fixes the spelling of names and terms you add.
Get Murmela. It's free.
Apple silicon · macOS 11 or later · about 230 MB
Signed and notarized by Apple. Automatic updates, which you can switch off.
Memory: 8 GB runs dictation and the compact translation model. 16 GB runs the best translation model. 18 GB or more runs VibeVoice, the most accurate engine for files.
Pro $19 once · Lifetime $49 $99 for the first 500 · 30-day refund