Earkeep
A Limitless and Rewind alternative that is only software
Last updated: · Reviewed quarterly
If you bought into Limitless or Rewind for the idea of ambient, always-on memory, you were right about the idea. Earkeep is built on the same conviction minus the pendant: a desktop app that hears what your computer hears, and lets you define a meeting after it already happened.
14-day full trial, no account required.
- No pendant to buy, charge or lose
- Transcribed on your device, not in a cloud
- €39 once, with no server to switch off
The verdict
If what you want back is the pendant, the commute and the lunch conversations, Earkeep can't do that, and nothing software-only on your device can. If what you actually want back is the part where your meetings are transcribed automatically, retroactively, without a bot and without typing notes, and you want the resulting archive to be yours in a way that can't be shut off by a company being acquired, Earkeep is built for exactly that.
What happened to Limitless and Rewind
Limitless started in 2020 as Rewind, a Mac app that continuously recorded your screen and audio, stored it locally, and made it searchable: "a search engine for your life." In 2024 the company rebranded to Limitless and pivoted to a $199 wearable pendant that recorded conversations all day and transcribed them in the cloud, calling the pendant "the superior approach." The Rewind Mac app went into maintenance mode as the architecture moved to a cloud-connected backend.
On December 5, 2025, Meta acquired Limitless to fuel its AI wearables and personal-superintelligence push. New pendant sales and new subscriptions stopped immediately. Existing customers were moved to the paid Unlimited plan for free, "for at least one year," under Meta's terms of service and privacy policy. On December 19, 2025, the Rewind Mac app's screen and audio recording was permanently disabled: a kill switch, not a graceful sunset. Service was terminated outright in seven regions, and users in the UK and South Korea reported their pendants simply stopping.
The reaction was immediate. Community reporting describes users' first response as asking for refunds and raising concerns about Meta's privacy reputation, and no refund program was announced for the Rewind shutdown. On r/RewindAI, the community that had already lived through the Rewind-to-Limitless pivot once, this was the second time the same base felt abandoned. One user summed up the first pivot months before the Meta news even landed: "we largely trusted them when they said 'we're shifting our focus from Rewind to Limitless because we believe it is the superior approach.' Now, a year later, I'm less confident… or that they were even thinking of us."
Why people look for a Limitless alternative
Transcribed on your device, not in someone's cloud
Limitless's core pitch, in both its Rewind and Limitless eras, started as "your data stays on your device." By the time Meta bought the company, that had quietly become untrue: audio and transcripts lived in a cloud backend, wrapped in encryption marketing. Encryption at rest doesn't change the underlying fact: no cloud connection, no product.
Earkeep's audio is processed only in memory on your own device, never written to disk and never uploaded. There is no server involved in transcription, no API key, and no account to close.
An archive that can't be switched off
When the company running that cloud was acquired, users' archives moved under the acquirer's terms and the app they had paid for got a kill switch flipped on it from outside their control. What Earkeep produces instead is plain files on your disk that you own outright, readable with a text editor or grep long after any company's plans change.
The community's own migration criteria in r/RewindAI threads were local processing, no subscription, data you keep, and a meetings focus. Earkeep was built around exactly those requirements from the start, not retrofitted after the Meta news.
Per the update policy, the €39 you pay is yours to keep forever: it includes all updates to Earkeep 1.x, and if a future paid major version ever ships, the version you already have keeps working. Nobody can acquire Earkeep and turn off the copy already running on your device, because there is no server-side switch to flip.
Your own agent, over your own transcripts
Limitless's answer to "what did I miss" was a cloud "Ask AI" that ran large models over your whole recorded history on their servers. Earkeep runs that question the other way round: the agents you already use, attached to the meeting in front of you, reading files that never left your device.
ACP agents ship in the app and an MCP server exposes your spans to any client you already run, so notes and summaries get written from the full transcript rather than from a vendor's index of it. It is more hands-on than a built-in cloud chat, and nothing about it stops working when someone else's roadmap changes.
Side by side
| Capability | Earkeep | Limitless / Rewind |
|---|---|---|
| Always-on capture | Mic and system audio while running | The pendant, all day |
| Bot-free | No participant joins | No participant joins |
| Captures away from the desk | Only what your device hears | The pendant went everywhere |
| Audio processed on your device | Whisper or Parakeet, fully on-device | Cloud-processed in the "Confidential Cloud" |
| Retroactive meeting spans | Or marked by your calendar | An auto-detected lifelog instead |
| AI notes and summaries | No, but an agent you connect writes them from the transcript | Written as the meeting went |
| Labels who said what | Not yet | Shipped, but widely reported broken |
| Your own agents can read it | ACP agents plus MCP, over local data | A developer API and a cloud chat |
| Mobile app | Desktop only | iOS and Android, plus web |
| Still available today | Actively developed | Discontinued after the Meta acquisition |
| Pricing | €39 once, no subscription | $199 pendant plus $19-29/mo, historically $430-550 in year one |
Built inNo, but an agent you connect canPartlyNot available
Replacing it takes an afternoon
- Install it today and let it run. There is no waitlist and no hardware to order, so the free trial is capturing on your device within minutes of the download. A first day of real meetings is recorded before you have configured anything.
- Mark yesterday, or connect a calendar. Drag a span across the timeline where a meeting was, or point Earkeep at Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook or any ICS URL and let every event title its own span.
- Keep the old archive separately, because Earkeep cannot take it. There is no import tool and no migration path for another product's cloud-stored history: export whatever Limitless or Rewind still lets you export and keep it in its own folder. Earkeep's record starts on the day you install it, and from then on it is plain files you hold rather than a subscription you carry.
Which one fits you
Choose Earkeep if
What you miss is the meetings, and the "I never have to remember to hit record" part.
- You want the ambient premise back without a device to buy, charge or wear
- Transcription has to happen on your own device, with no cloud backend behind it
- You would rather pay €39 once than $19-29 a month on top of $199 of hardware
- The archive should be plain files you keep, independent of any company's ownership
- Your own agents should be able to read your meetings directly
Choose Limitless if
Limitless has been switched off, so read this as the honest list of what you lose by moving to Earkeep.
- Away-from-desk capture. The pendant recorded hallway conversations, lunches and conferences, anywhere you wore it. Earkeep only captures what your device hears; there is no wearable and no mobile app.
- Rewind's screen recording. Rewind's original pitch included recording and OCR-ing everything on your screen. Earkeep is audio-only.
- Mobile and cross-device sync. Limitless shipped iOS and Android apps with sync across devices. Earkeep is a macOS desktop app only.
- Frontier-model chat over months of history. Limitless's cloud "Ask AI" ran large models over your whole recorded history on their servers. Earkeep's answer is bringing your own agent or MCP client to your local transcripts, which is powerful but more hands-on.
- Speaker labels. Limitless shipped them, though users widely reported them broken. Earkeep does not label who said what yet.
Limitless positioned itself as personal AI memory and lifelogging, powered by everything you have seen, said and heard, with meetings as the wedge rather than the point. Earkeep is narrower on purpose: desk work, retroactive spans, calendar context and your own agents over local transcripts. See Earkeep for product managers for the role-specific version.
Other tools people weigh this against
Anyone shopping for a Limitless alternative usually has a few other tabs open. Each of these gets the same treatment as this page: Granola, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, Fathom, tl;dv, Jamie, MacWhisper and Plaud, or all nine side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Earkeep a good Limitless alternative?
It is, for the meetings half of what Limitless did. Earkeep keeps the ambient premise, nothing to start and nothing to remember, and moves the whole thing onto your device as plain files, so no acquisition can switch it off. What it does not replace is the pendant: there is no wearable, no mobile app and no capture away from your desk. It also cannot import your Limitless or Rewind history.
Is Limitless still available to buy?
No. New pendant sales and new subscriptions stopped on December 5, 2025, the day Meta's acquisition was announced. Existing customers were moved to the Unlimited plan for free for at least a year under Meta's terms.
Is the Rewind Mac app still working?
Rewind's screen and audio recording was permanently disabled on December 19, 2025.
Can I import my Limitless or Rewind data into Earkeep?
There is currently no supported way to import Limitless or Rewind history into Earkeep. Earkeep starts capturing your meetings from the moment you install it; it doesn't have a migration path for another product's cloud-stored archive.
Does Earkeep need a pendant or any other hardware?
No. Earkeep runs on the computer you already use: mic and system audio capture, no wearable, no separate device to buy, charge, or lose.
Why does Earkeep cost €39 once instead of a monthly subscription?
Limitless's subscription existed because its architecture was cloud-dependent: every hour of transcription cost the company money to process on their servers. Earkeep transcribes locally with Whisper or Parakeet models at zero marginal cost per meeting, which is what makes a one-time price possible. See the full pricing and update policy.
What happens to Earkeep if the company behind it is ever sold or shuts down?
Your transcripts are already plain files on your disk, independent of any server. Per the update policy, your license keeps the app working forever on the version you bought; there's no cloud backend that a change of ownership could switch off.
Try it on your own meetings
14-day full trial, no account required.