Fireflies.ai App Guide: Desktop, Chrome Extension and Mobile

Fireflies.ai gives you four apps that capture a conversation without its meeting bot, and the right one depends on where the conversation happens. The desktop app for macOS 12+ and Windows 10+ records any call on your computer through system audio, but it keeps no audio file. The Chrome extension captures Google Meet in Chrome only, and only audio. The iOS and Android app records in-person meetings. The Web Recorder captures audio in a browser tab with nothing to install. The desktop, Chrome and mobile apps are listed on every plan, Free included ^[1]. The plan decides what the recording can become: downloads, most integrations and video from the bot start on Pro.

Which app captures what

The real split is the bot. Only the Fireflies.ai Notetaker records video across Zoom, Teams and Meet alike and runs Sales Assist. One exception sits outside the apps: a Google Meet SDK integration, authorized by a Google Workspace admin, records Meet audio and video without a visible bot, for up to three active participants at a time. Every bot-free app trades something for staying out of the participant list. Speaker names are a good example: Fireflies detects them when the bot joins a video meeting or when the Chrome extension captures a Meet, while desktop Take Notes, mobile recordings and uploads come back as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2.

One more thing before you install anything. Signing up connects your calendar, and by default the bot then auto-joins every meeting with a video link, so check that setting first (how to stop the bot).

The desktop app: bot-free Take Notes on Mac and Windows

The desktop app is a download for Windows 10 or later and macOS 12 or later, with separate builds for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Its Take Notes button records system audio, so no extra participant appears in the call ^[2]. It detects calls on its own across Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, WhatsApp, Aircall, FaceTime, Discord and Slack Huddles. Phone calls work as well: iPhone calls on macOS, and Android or iPhone calls through Phone Link on Windows. During the call a floating pane shows Live Assist, AskFred, AI Skills, your manual notes and nudges about long monologues or speaking pace. It hides itself during screen sharing unless you change that preference.

The limits are specific. Take Notes saves no audio or video file, only the transcript and the summary. Speakers stay unnamed. Sales Assist, which answers from an uploaded knowledge base, needs the bot. You cannot switch a running Take Notes session to the bot either; you stop it and start a new session with Invite Notetaker. Fireflies also warns that an interrupted bot-free capture may not be recoverable, so watch the capture pill in the pane. Consent aids are on by default: a spoken notice about 10 seconds in, an AI Taking Notes watermark on your camera, and a chat message that works on macOS only, with Accessibility permission, in Zoom, Google Meet and Teams Business accounts.

Bot-free does not mean consent-free. Under Fireflies' Terms, telling participants and getting their consent is your job, whichever app records, and Fireflies' desktop page repeats that local recording laws are the user's responsibility. The same page says a Fireflies indicator shows participants when the notetaker is on. If you switch one of them off, Fireflies says the duty to inform participants and follow recording laws rests entirely with you.

The Chrome extension: Google Meet in Chrome, audio only

The extension works only with Google Meet running in Chrome ^[3]. Zoom and Teams calls need the bot. With Auto-capture on, it detects a Meet call and starts recording in the background without anyone joining; with it off, you click Record with extension. It records audio only. For video you invite the Notetaker from the same extension, and that invite also works only on Meet. Do not run both at once, because the extension plus the bot creates two separate meetings. The extension now keeps meetings shorter than 3 minutes, which it used to drop, and it can capture Loom videos played in Chrome.

Live Assist runs inside the Meet tab, with real-time notes, summaries, follow-ups and AskFred answers. On Free you get four standard suggestions: Follow Up, Catch Up, Summarize So Far and Action Items. Dynamic topic suggestions need a paid plan, and each AskFred question in the pane uses AI credits. Two quieter gaps matter for sales teams. Conversation metrics are not tracked for extension meetings. And CRM integrations such as Salesforce and Zoho CRM log extension meetings under the fred@fireflies.ai contact rather than under the customer, so check your CRM before you standardize on it.

The mobile app: in-person meetings and the bot on the go

The iOS and Android app is the in-person tool ^[4]. One tap on the mic starts a recording, with pause, resume and stop. It records offline and holds the file on the phone as an unprocessed recording until you upload it; transcription itself needs a connection. It also uploads MP3, MP4, M4A and WAV files. Add to live meeting sends the bot to a Zoom, Teams or Google Meet link you paste, and the bot takes a few minutes to arrive. Each meeting opens with Summary, Transcript and Soundbites tabs plus AskFred, and an Analytics tab shows topic insights across your conversations.

Know what it is not. It does not record cellular calls; phone calls reach Fireflies through the desktop app or a dialer integration. Mobile recordings get generic speaker labels. Live Assist on the phone works without inviting the bot, but Fireflies' help says that currently covers only Google Meet captured by the Chrome extension, and it needs the same login email plus microphone and notification permissions. In-person recordings never count toward the monthly upload limit and are never charged per minute. Files you upload from the phone are uploads, though, and follow the upload rules.

The Web Recorder and Fireflies Talk

The Web Recorder

If you cannot install anything, the Web Recorder inside the Fireflies web app records audio straight from the browser. You open Capture, choose Start recording and allow the microphone. There is no download and no bot, so it needs no invite or scheduled meeting, and you can pause and type manual notes while it runs. It captures audio only. The web app supports Chrome, Firefox and Safari, which makes this the route for a shared laptop in a meeting room or a locked-down work machine where IT will not approve another desktop app.

Fireflies Talk

Talk is dictation, not a meeting recorder. It is free and unlimited on every plan, and it types into any text field: on Mac with Fn, on Windows with Ctrl + Win, on iPhone through a Fireflies keyboard on iOS 18 or later, and on Android through a Talk pill on Android 13 or later. It covers 90+ languages and strips filler words, though the iPhone keyboard itself types only English, Spanish and Portuguese. Desktop dictations stay on your device, and mobile keeps no history. The Terms bar Talk from meetings or calls with others, and no BAA covers it, so keep it away from screens with patient data, card numbers or passwords.

Choosing an app, then a plan

Pick by place, not by feature list. If your calls happen in Google Meet in Chrome, the extension is the lightest option. If they happen in Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp or on the phone at your desk, Take Notes in the desktop app covers them all. For a meeting room or a client's office, use the phone app, or the Web Recorder on a laptop. When you need video, named speakers outside Google Meet or Sales Assist, invite the bot, which you can do from the desktop app, the extension or the phone.

Free has two catches. Accounts created on or after 1 September 2026 get only a few transcription credits, one per meeting, and the number depends on where you sign up: 3 on the web, 5 through the Chrome extension, 10 as a new mobile user. Turning on calendar auto-join for all meetings, your own meetings or teammates' meetings makes transcription unlimited, but those transcripts are raw text (summaries and other AI features still use AI credits), and auto-join means the bot joins those meetings. Invite-only auto-join does not count. Storage is the second catch, 400 minutes per team in total, and it fills with app recordings too; our Fireflies.ai pricing breakdown covers every cap.

Pro costs $10 per seat per month billed annually, or $18 per seat per month billed monthly. It removes the transcription credit cap and adds downloads of transcripts, summaries and audio, dynamic Live Assist suggestions, most integrations (a few, such as Redtail, WhatsApp, Amazon S3, Snowflake and Affinity, need Business), 8,000 minutes of storage per seat in total (not per month) pooled across the team, and 720p video from the bot. Annual billing comes to $120 a year per seat against $216 on monthly billing, by our arithmetic. Monthly wins only if you need Pro for six months or less, at $108 against $120 per seat, by our arithmetic.

Business costs $19 per seat per month billed annually, or $29 per seat per month billed monthly, and adds unlimited storage and Multi-language Mode (beta). AI credits for AskFred and AI Skills are a one-time team allotment: 20 on Free and Pro, 30 on Business.

The bottom line

Fireflies.ai's apps cover almost every place a conversation happens without a bot in the room: the desktop app for calls on your computer, the extension for Google Meet in Chrome, the phone app for in-person meetings and the Web Recorder for locked-down machines. Each one gives something up, whether that is saved audio, video, speaker names or platforms beyond Meet, and only the bot gives you everything on every major platform. Install the app that matches where you meet and set auto-join deliberately. Know that a new Free account with auto-join off gets only a few transcription credits and 400 minutes of storage per team in total. Pro removes the transcription cap and adds 8,000 minutes of storage per seat in total, downloads, most integrations and video.