Can Granola, Otter or Fireflies record phone calls?

Can Granola record phone calls?

Yes, but only outgoing calls on an iPhone, and only when you dial from the Granola app. Incoming calls are not supported, and the Android app does not take notes on phone calls.

Granola’s help page is short about it: "Phone calls are available on iOS only." You tap the phone icon in the app, enter your number and confirm it with a verification call. After that you call a contact or type in a number inside Granola. The other person sees your own number. A few minutes after you hang up, the notes are ready.

The feature works in 40 countries and regions, and the Netherlands is on the list. Dutch is one of the 17 languages Granola transcribes on mobile; the page about phone calls does not say separately which languages apply to calls. All data is stored on AWS servers in the United States, and Granola writes that it does not offer EU data residency at this time. Audio is not kept: it is deleted once the transcription is done.

Can Otter record phone calls?

No, not directly. According to Otter’s help center, Apple and Google restrict third-party apps from recording phone calls. So you record the call with your phone’s built-in recorder and import the audio file into Otter afterwards.

Otter makes no distinction between outgoing and incoming here: in neither case does the app record the call itself. If a recording is running in the Otter app and you get on a phone call, that recording pauses for as long as the call lasts. Otter writes that it hopes to offer direct phone call recording in the future if platform policies allow.

So the route depends on your phone. On iPhone, Otter points to Apple’s own call recording: you record the call, open it in Notes and share the audio with Otter. Apple lists the European Union among the places where that feature is not available, so in the Netherlands you do not have that recording to import. On Android, Otter points to the recorder in Google’s Phone app. Google states that only certain devices and carriers support it and that it is not available in every country.

For Dutch calls there is a second limit. Otter transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified). Dutch is not on that list. Otter stores its data with AWS in the US West region.

Can Fireflies record phone calls?

Not a call you make on your mobile. Fireflies says so itself: it does not directly record cellular calls from your phone. It does pick up calls that run through a business phone system such as Aircall, RingCentral or Zoom Phone, and you can upload a recording you made somewhere else.

For capturing, the Fireflies app for iPhone and Android offers the following: recording an in-person conversation through the microphone, adding Fireflies to a live online meeting, and uploading an audio or video file. In their own words the mobile app "isn’t a native cellular call recorder".

Phone calls come in through what Fireflies calls dialer integrations. The list in their knowledge base: Aircall, JustCall, Outreach, Quo (formerly OpenPhone), RingCentral, Salesloft and Zoom Phone. If your team calls through one of those systems, the calls are transcribed and summarised automatically. For Aircall the page adds that this covers inbound and outbound calls. It also means the call has to run through that phone system; a call from your own mobile number stays outside it.

On languages Fireflies is the broadest of the three: more than 100, with Dutch and Flemish both on the list. By default data is stored and processed in the United States, on AWS and Google Cloud. The Enterprise plan has private storage; the same page notes: "Your data will be stored in the EU, but processed in the US." On Pro plans and higher you can download the audio of a recording as an MP3.

What about incoming calls?

None of the three captures an incoming call on your mobile number by itself. Granola does not support inbound calls, Otter needs a recording from your phone, and Fireflies only sees calls that arrive on a connected phone system. Ajora captures incoming calls through call forwarding.

Granola and Otter give the same reason: the operating system of your phone does not hand call audio to an app. Granola calls it "strict limitations in iOS" and offers a workaround in its own documentation: ask the person calling whether you can quickly call them back. Otter leaves the recording to the phone itself.

Ajora takes a different route. You switch on call forwarding once, with a button in the app. From then on your incoming calls run through your personal Ajora number and Ajora joins by itself. You answer as always and there is nothing to do during the call. How to set it up is in set up call forwarding, and why an iPhone needs this route is in automatically record a phone call on your iPhone.

One condition comes with it: your carrier has to allow call forwarding. It works on KPN, Vodafone/Ziggo, Odido and plenty of other carriers. Where a carrier does not allow it, you add Ajora to the call by hand.

Granola, Otter, Fireflies or Ajora: what are the differences?

Granola covers outgoing calls on iPhone, Otter works from a recording you import, and Fireflies works from a business phone system. Ajora covers outgoing and incoming calls on your own mobile, on iPhone and Android. The full comparison is in the table below.

Which is the better choice for video meetings?

Granola, Otter and Fireflies. All three are built around the video meeting. Ajora does not do meetings: it captures phone calls and conversations in person.

Otter Notetaker joins your Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings automatically from your calendar. Fireflies is added to a meeting on those same platforms and gives you a transcript, a summary and action items afterwards. Granola works from the desktop app on macOS and Windows and captures the audio of your computer, so no bot joins the meeting.

The two go together: a meeting tool for what is in your calendar, and Ajora for the calls to and from your mobile number.

Which one fits the way you call?

If you only call out from an iPhone and already use Granola, its phone feature covers that. If your team calls through Aircall, RingCentral or another supported phone system, Fireflies picks those calls up. If you already have an audio file in one of Otter’s six languages, Otter transcribes it. If you call and get called on your own mobile, in Dutch, on iPhone or Android, that is what Ajora is built for.

What you get back differs too. With Ajora a debrief is waiting a few minutes after you hang up: a summary, the action items and the full transcript, in the app and in the web dashboard. Ajora keeps no audio, so you can read a call back but not listen to it. If you need the recording itself, Fireflies with a phone system is the better fit, or Otter with a file you import yourself.

Comparing with a recording device rather than a meeting tool? Read Plaud vs Pocket vs Ajora. For a recording app there is Ajora vs TapeACall.

Jort van Meenen

One of the three co-founders of Ajora. Jort focuses on user experience and growth.

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