Notto
AI dictation, meeting notes & invisible chat overlay
131 followers
AI dictation, meeting notes & invisible chat overlay
131 followers
The invisible AI overlay for your desktop. Transcribe meetings, dictate text and chat with your notes without switching apps. Works anywhere you do.
Notto
@anghelmatei Hi Matei, Congrats on the launch. How does this differ from cluade (and others) desktop? Am I not getting it or are you competing directly on being better?
Notto
@zolani_matebese Hi Zolani! The main difference is usecases.
While Claude is great for lots of things, but you cannot use it to record your meetings or do dictation.
And as far as the chat overlay goes, Notto sits transparently on top of your work instead of a separate app for chats. This means you can ask the AI questions while looking directly at your main task or keeping eye contact in a meeting, without hiding your workspace.
We are competing on the "Delivery Mechanism" (Overlay vs Window) rather than the model itself!
I really wanted to like Notto, but within 5 minutes I ran into so many bugs it was unusable:
chat shortcut triggered a meeting usage. I was at 5 meetings transcribed when I had no meeting apps open within 2 minutes.
783MB install size!
crashed after first run after granting all permissions
can't disable shortcuts – I have many other shortcuts assigned to the same combos
at one point it took over my spacebar, every hit opened the overlay
missing setting to change overlay transparency - I do not want to remember another shortcut to do this, and it's not a setting I'd want to change very often
overlay never worked
Running on MacOS 26.2 on an Nov 2024 M4
If it worked as described, I'd use it daily.
I also suspect this is one of the apps that will soon be replaced by Siri / Google Assistant when they get upgraded.
Notto
@visle Hey Victor, first of all, thank you for the brutal honesty. This is exactly the kind of feedback that helps us move towards being a more reliable tool. I’m genuinely sorry the first experience was so friction-heavy.
I’m currently working on pushing a hotfix to address all of your points. Here is where we stand on your list:
Meeting Detection & Shortcuts: The 'spacebar takeover' and phantom meeting counts are bugs in our input-listening logic. We are fixing this so Notto stays strictly out of the way until summoned.
Customization: We’re adding the ability to disable shortcuts so they don't clash with your existing workflow.
Install Size: We are working on optimizing the install size to shave off ~250MB-350MB
Stability : I’m currently investigating the crash you experienced during the initial permission grant. It sounds like a conflict with the native API permissions on the newer M4 architecture, and I'm prioritizing a fix to ensure a smooth first-run experience.
A quick clarification to help me debug:
Transparency: There is actually a slider in the Settings page, but your comment proves it’s not discoverable enough. I’ll be moving it to the top of the UI.
'Overlay never worked': Did the UI fail to appear entirely, or did you just not get an AI response back after prompting?
I’ve credited 1 month of Ultra to your account as a thank you for this breakdown. I'd love for you to give it another shot in a few days once the update is live.
As for Siri/Google replacing us - you might be right! Our goal in the meantime is to provide a much more specialized, 'invisible' workflow for power users that general assistants often overlook.
Wow, Notto looks amazing! That invisible chat overlay is genius. How does it handle privacy when Im sharing my screen? Super curious!
Notto
@jaydev13 Hey! So glad you like the overlay! Privacy was one of the biggest challenges we wanted to solve with Notto. To handle screen sharing, we built a 'Screen Capture Protection' toggle (found in the Stealth Mode settings). When it's on, Notto uses low-level OS APIs to tell the system to exclude those windows from any capture. The result is pretty magical: you can see the AI chat and your notes perfectly on your monitor, but for anyone watching your screen share or recording (via Zoom, Teams, OBS, etc.), the windows are completely invisible - they don't even show up as a black box! It’s currently available as part of our Ultra plan. 😉
Congrats on the launch! The idea of an AI layer that stays out of the way instead of demanding attention is really refreshing, especially for meetings and deep-focus work. How Notto handles moments when multiple inputs overlap, for example dictation, notes, and AI replies at once and how you prevent the overlay from becoming cognitively noisy even if it’s visually minimal.
Notto
@vik_sh Thanks! We prevent noise through State-Dependent Minimalism:
Priority Hierarchy: Active actions (like dictation) automatically suppress background prompts (like meeting detection) so the app never competes with itself.
Visual Zoning: We separate high-frequency layers—dictation feedback lives at the bottom, chat at the top—ensuring they never jumble in one area.
Audio over Visual: Subtle 'chirps' and hold-to-talk shortcuts let you operate by feel/ear. This keeps your eyes on your work and the UI out of mind.
Immediate Release: The UI 'flatlines' and shrinks the instant you stop talking, providing an immediate visual signal that the tool is out of your way
Notto
@zahran_dabbagh Thanks for the support and the sharp feedback, Zahran! 🙌
You are spot on. That specific moment of anxiety—when you need to look up an answer mid-meeting but don't want to break eye contact or start typing furiously—was actually the spark that made me build Notto.
I’m going to take your advice and try to highlight that specific "mid-meeting helper" use case more prominent on the landing page. It's the feature I love most too!
Really appreciate the insight!
The “invisible overlay” ethos is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it minimizes friction and clutter. On the other, it can sometimes feel too subtle — especially for new users who aren’t sure how to trigger it or where to look for controls. The simplicity that makes Notto elegant can also make it invisible in a way that feels confusing until you’re familiar with the UX.
Notto
@kimberly_ross This is such a thoughtful take, Kimberly. You are 100% right.
Designing for "invisibility" is actually much harder than designing a standard interface because, as you said, users can sometimes forget the app is there or how to summon it!
We are trying to balance this with intuitive keyboard shortcuts and a very subtle "summoning" bar, but it is definitely a constant balancing act between "clean" and "confusing."
Thanks for the feedback!
Congrats on version 2! The clean interface is exactly what note-taking should be. I'm curious - what was the biggest improvement from version 1 based on user feedback?