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wquguru/cicada

A macOS menu bar app that gives live bilingual subtitles, structured meeting notes and voice interpreting for any call or stream playing on your Mac.

Open-source alternative to:Otter.aiGoogle Live Translate

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What is it?

Cicada reads the system audio playing on a Mac and runs speech recognition locally, so it can caption Zoom, Feishu, Tencent Meeting, X Spaces or YouTube streams without joining the call or adding a bot. It shows bilingual subtitles that detect the spoken language and translate it into the system language, and it keeps a bilingual transcript for each session.

The meeting notes window builds a running summary with key points, decisions, action items, a fishbone diagram and a glossary of names and terms, and each conclusion links back to the original sentence. Notes and transcripts can be exported as Markdown, Word or SRT. Recordings and transcripts stay on the local machine.

For speaking in a meeting, holding the right Option key sends your speech through a translation pipeline and plays the translated voice into the call via the BlackHole 2ch virtual microphone. Full AI notes, one-step speech translation and voice cloning use the user's own Ling API key; without a key, subtitles, translation via Google or Apple, transcripts and interpreting still work with the Mac's built-in voice. The app requires macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon.

Key features

  • 01Live bilingual subtitles with automatic spoken-language detection
  • 02Structured meeting notes with summaries, action items and a glossary
  • 03Push-to-talk interpreting that plays translated speech into the call
  • 04Local transcript, recording and speaker identification storage
  • 05Export of notes and transcripts to Markdown, Word and SRT

Use cases

  • Following an English-language video call or livestream in real time
  • Taking bilingual meeting notes without a note-taker joining the call
  • Speaking in a meeting where the other participants use a different language
  • Creating subtitle files from a recorded session

Quick start

  1. 1

    Install Xcode Command Line Tools

    xcode-select --install
  2. 2

    Build the development app

    scripts/build.sh
  3. 3

    Open the built app

    open build/Cicada.app

Things to know

  • Requires macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon.
  • The app is not yet notarized by Apple, so the first launch needs manual approval in System Settings.
  • Meeting summaries and some interpreting features need your own Ling API key, which costs money beyond the monthly credit.

In collections

macOS menu bar appsOpen-source Mac appsAI video & audio tools

Topics

#live-captions#meeting-notes#subtitles#speech-recognition#translation#simultaneous-interpretation#macos#swift#menubar-app#swiftui

FAQ

What is cicada?
A macOS menu bar app that gives live bilingual subtitles, structured meeting notes and voice interpreting for any call or stream playing on your Mac. Cicada reads the system audio playing on a Mac and runs speech recognition locally, so it can caption Zoom, Feishu, Tencent Meeting, X Spaces or YouTube streams without joining the call or adding a bot. It shows bilingual subtitles that detect the spoken language and translate it into the system language, and it keeps a bilingual transcript for each session.
Is cicada free to use? What license does it have?
cicada is open source under the Apache-2.0 license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is cicada still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to cicada was on Nov 7, 2026.
What can I use cicada for?
Following an English-language video call or livestream in real time Taking bilingual meeting notes without a note-taker joining the call Speaking in a meeting where the other participants use a different language Creating subtitle files from a recorded session
How do I install cicada?
Install Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install Build the development app: scripts/build.sh Open the built app: open build/Cicada.app
Where can I get cicada?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/wquguru/cicada

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