You’re in a meeting and trying to take notes at the same time. Halfway through, you realize you have no idea what was said in the last five minutes. Flownote aims to solve that problem by automatically recording, transcribing, and summarizing meetings on your iPhone or Mac.
Who is behind Flownote?
Flownote is developed by Dent Labs, LLC, an American company that launched in 2024. It’s a relatively new player in the AI-powered note-taking tools market, specifically focused on the Apple ecosystem.
The original idea behind Flownote was clear: tackle inefficient meeting management by automatically converting audio recordings into accurate transcriptions and structured summaries. The goal was simple – users should be able to focus on the conversation itself, not on taking notes. The tool is fully designed to work in the background during conversations, without requiring active engagement.
The app has now reached over 10,000 downloads, which is a decent starting point for a tool that’s exclusively available for iOS and macOS. Dent Labs has deliberately positioned itself as an Apple-first solution, meaning they haven’t gone the cross-platform route that many competitors choose. Whether that remains a strategic choice or Android support follows later is still unclear.
Who is Flownote for?
Flownote primarily targets professionals who regularly have meetings and need to take notes. Think of consultants going from client meeting to client meeting, project managers with weekly status updates, or freelancers conducting intake calls. Students who want to record lectures and listen back later can also benefit from it.
The tool is especially interesting if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. Using an iPhone and a MacBook? Then you can seamlessly switch between devices. But that’s also where the biggest limitation lies: if you’re an Android user or primarily work on Windows, you simply can’t use Flownote. It’s truly exclusive to Apple users.
For teams collaborating on meeting notes, Flownote is probably not the best choice either. The tool is clearly built for individual use, not for collaboration scenarios where multiple people need access to the same transcriptions and notes.
What can Flownote do?
The free version of Flownote offers basic transcription for up to 20 recordings. For the more advanced features like unlimited recordings, automatic summaries, and the AI assistant, you need a paid subscription. Here are the main capabilities:
- AI Meeting Transcription: The core of Flownote is converting spoken words to text. According to users, the tool achieves an accuracy of about 99%, which is quite impressive. You can record both in-person meetings and online calls via Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet.
- Automatic summaries and action items: After a meeting ends, Flownote automatically generates a summary of the key points and extracts action items. This saves you from manually reading through a complete transcript to figure out what was actually decided.
- Speaker identification: The tool recognizes who says what during a conversation. This works especially well in meetings with multiple participants, because you can later search exactly who made a particular comment or decision.
- Chat with your notes: You can ask questions to the AI assistant about your recorded meetings. For example: “What were the action items for Jan?” or “When is the deadline for the project proposal?” The AI then searches your transcript and provides a direct answer.
- Calendar integration: Flownote connects with Google Calendar and Apple Calendar. This allows you to start and record a meeting directly from your calendar, and notes are automatically linked to the correct appointment.
- Export to PDF and TXT: You can export transcripts and summaries to various formats. Useful if you want to share notes with colleagues who don’t have access to Flownote, or if you want to archive them in another system.
- Background recording: A practical feature is that Flownote continues recording when you lock your phone or switch to another app. So you don’t have to keep the app constantly open during a long conversation, which saves battery.
What’s notable is that Flownote doesn’t send bots to your online meetings, like some competitors do. The tool simply records the audio through your own device. That’s more privacy-friendly, but also means you need to be there yourself to start the recording.
What does Flownote cost?
Flownote has a free Starter plan that allows you to make up to 20 recordings with basic transcription. That’s enough to try out the tool and see if it fits your workflow, but for regular use you’ll quickly hit the limit.
The Pro subscription costs $1.99 per month. That’s on the pricey side, especially when you compare it to alternatives that are often around $1 to $1 per month. The good news is that there’s also an annual subscription for $1.99, which comes out to $1 per month. That’s a significant savings if you want to use the tool long-term.
New users get a free 7-day trial of the Pro plan. Just be aware: multiple users complain that after the trial they were unexpectedly charged without clear warning beforehand. So make sure you set a reminder if you want to cancel the trial before you’re charged.
There is no lifetime deal available, which means you’ll need an ongoing subscription to use the tool. For people who have regular meetings, that can pay for itself in time savings, but for occasional use it’s a significant investment.
What should you watch out for?
Despite the good transcription quality, there are quite a few complaints about Flownote’s reliability. The most common problem is that recordings sometimes completely disappear, especially after longer sessions. Users report that after a meeting of an hour or longer, their recording is gone with no way to recover it. That’s obviously a dealbreaker if you’re relying on important conversations being saved.
Another common problem is that the app gets stuck on “processing” after a recording. The transcription doesn’t get generated, and you’re left with an audio file that you can’t search or summarize. Some users fix this by reinstalling the app, but that’s not a permanent solution.
Customer service gets mixed reviews. Multiple users complain that after losing recordings they didn’t get a refund, even when they reported the problem immediately. For a tool that costs $1 per year (with monthly payments), you should expect these kinds of critical bugs to be fixed or compensated quickly.
The lack of an Android version is a problem for many potential users. If you work in a team where not everyone has Apple devices, you simply can’t use Flownote as a standard tool. Even for people who have both an iPhone and a Windows laptop, the macOS exclusivity is limiting.
Finally, the pricing is a point of discussion. At $1.99 per month, Flownote is among the more expensive options in this category, while competitors with similar functionality are often cheaper and also work on more platforms.
Flownote alternatives
If Flownote doesn’t quite fit what you’re looking for, there are several alternatives worth considering:
- Otter.ai: Choose Otter if you’re looking for a cross-platform solution that also works on web and Android. Otter has better team features and a more extensive free version, making it more suitable for collaboration scenarios.
- Fireflies.ai: This is the better choice if you want to automatically have a bot join online meetings. Fireflies integrates more deeply with CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot, which is useful for sales and account management.
- Supernormal: If you primarily use Google Meet for video meetings, Supernormal is a stronger option. The integration with Google Workspace is more extensive than Flownote, and notes are automatically synchronized with Google Docs.
Each of these alternatives has its own strengths, but the main difference is that they all work on multiple platforms and often have better team features than Flownote.
Frequently asked questions
Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions about Flownote:
Does Flownote work with Zoom and Teams?
Yes, Flownote can record and transcribe audio from both in-person meetings and online calls via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. You simply start the recording in the app while participating in the video meeting.
Is my data safe?
Flownote stores recordings and transcripts privately in the cloud and does not share them with third parties, except for necessary AI processing. The servers are located in the United States, which means your data falls under U.S. privacy laws, not European GDPR.
Can I use the app when my phone is locked?
Yes, Flownote supports background recording. You can continue recording conversations while your phone is locked or when you’re using other apps. This is especially useful for longer meetings where you want to do other things on your phone in between.
Conclusion
Flownote delivers good transcription quality and has useful features like speaker recognition and automatic summaries. For Apple users who regularly have meetings and want to take notes from them, it can be a time-saving tool. However, the reliability issues with disappearing recordings and stalled processing are a serious risk, especially for important conversations. The price is on the high side compared to competitors that work on more platforms and offer better team features. Choose Flownote if you work exclusively on Apple devices and use the tool mainly individually, but thoroughly test the free version before committing to an annual subscription.
