No. Recording, transcription and speaker separation run on your device, Mac or iPhone, and the audio stays in your vault. Your words only leave if you connect a cloud AI and use it: then the note or transcript you ask about goes to that provider so it can answer.

Only now and then. MindLake connects to start its free trial, every few days while the trial runs, and about once a month once you’ve bought it, to check the licence. In between, recording, transcription, search and writing all work offline, and so do summaries on macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence. Cloud AI, finding sources on the web and publishing need a connection, and all three are optional.

MindLake is free to try for 14 days, then a one-off £19 (€19 or $19 outside the UK). That includes on-device transcription and summaries, and the iPhone companion. Publishing notes to the web is optional, at £4 a month.

The one you choose. On your Mac: Apple Intelligence (macOS 26) for titles, tags and summaries, or a Gemma model MindLake downloads and runs itself, which can chat too, with nothing leaving the Mac. Or connect the AI you already pay for: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and other command-line agents, or your own API key for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Groq, Mistral, xAI, DeepSeek or OpenRouter.

Plain Markdown with YAML frontmatter, one file per note, in a folder you choose. Lists are CSV files and canvases use an open canvas format, with the audio beside them. If you ever stop using MindLake, your notes are still just files you can open anywhere.

A Mac on macOS 15 or later, with Apple silicon or Intel. On an Intel Mac, transcription uses Apple’s own speech recogniser, since there is no Neural Engine. Summaries on the Mac itself need Apple Intelligence on macOS 26, unless you download a local model or connect a cloud AI. The iPhone companion needs iOS 18 or later and syncs through your own iCloud.

99, entirely on your device. On a Mac with Apple silicon the default model covers English and 24 other European languages and is the fastest; if your Mac is set to another language it starts on a Whisper model instead, and the Whisper models in Settings ▸ Local Models cover 99 and find the language for you.

Not for the free trial. Buying MindLake signs you in, because the licence lives on your account and works on up to three Macs at a time; publishing does too. Type your email in the app, then the code we send you, and you’re signed in. No password to remember.

Yes, that’s what mindlake.app is for. Publish a single note to a clean web page, straight from the app: for anyone with the link, for everyone, or behind its own password.