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Rylo Desktop is here: live captions for every call on your computer
Rylo Desktop brings live captions to Zoom, Meet, Teams, and more on Mac and Windows. Free for people with hearing loss or a speech disability.
Tomer Aharoni
If you're Deaf or hard of hearing, you probably know this moment. The meeting is moving fast, someone asks a question, and you're still piecing together what was said two sentences ago.
Most of us don't get to choose the tools we use at work. Your employer picks the meeting app, and caption quality changes from Zoom to Teams to Meet. Some captioning tools only work if a bot joins the meeting. That bot can make you stand out, and sometimes the host blocks it, which leaves you with no captions at all.
We built Rylo Desktop to change that. It's available now for Mac and Windows, and it's free for people with hearing loss or a speech disability.
What Rylo Desktop does
Rylo Desktop is a desktop app that puts live captions on your screen during calls and meetings, in the apps you already use. Nothing joins the call as a participant, and nobody else has to turn anything on for you.
It works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Slack, Webex, WhatsApp, and calls in your browser.
Here's how it works:
- A call starts. Rylo Desktop notices. Join a meeting in Zoom, Teams, your browser, or another app, and Rylo Desktop offers captions.
- Click Start. Real-time captions appear on your screen.
- Read along, your way. Pick a view, make the text as large as you need, and pause whenever you want.
Key features
Three ways to read. Choose the view that fits the moment:
- Chat view: speaker-by-speaker bubbles, each marked with who said it, scrolling like a messaging thread.
- Caption bar: a clean bar of large type across the bottom of your screen, familiar if you've ever used CART.
- Notch view: a subtle strip at the top of your screen that floats above every app, so you can read along without covering the meeting.
Know who said what. In group calls, every line is marked with who said it, so you can follow along, answer the right person, and jump in when you have something to say.
Speak or type, it's your call. Rather not use your voice? Type your reply, and Rylo Desktop says it out loud in the call.
Make it your size. Bigger text, light or dark mode, and a window you can move wherever you want it.
Transcripts and summaries you keep. Every captioned conversation is saved on your computer, so you can search it, export it as a text file, or share it. Rylo Desktop also writes an AI summary with decisions and action items. It does not make a video recording.
Auto language detection. Captions are available in 60 languages, and there’s no need to worry about switching languages. Rylo Desktop auto-detects and captions in the right language, including English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, and Hebrew.
Private by design
Captioning is private and secure by design. No call content is stored on Rylo's servers. Your transcripts are saved only on your own computer, not on Rylo's end, and you can delete them anytime. No bots join, and no human ever listens in. You decide when captions start, pause, and stop.
Made for the calls that matter
- Work meetings: stand-ups, one-on-ones, interviews, and presentations.
- Appointments and services: telehealth visits, banking calls, and customer support, where every detail counts.
- Webinars: calls with one speaker or many.
- Gaming and Leisure: Communication made accessible. Wherever you communicate.
How to get started
Rylo Desktop is free for people with hearing loss or a speech disability.
- Download Rylo Desktop on your computer at rylo.com/desktop.
- Install it. On a Mac, drag Rylo Desktop into your Applications folder. On Windows, run Rylo Desktop Setup, which picks the right version for your PC.
- Sign in or create your account. Already a Rylo user? Sign in with the same Rylo account.
- Join your next call and click Start.
One Rylo account for your calls and meetings
Rylo Desktop is part of the Rylo family, alongside Rylo Phone for captioned phone calls, and Live Transcribe for in-person captioning. If you already use Rylo Phone, sign in to Rylo Desktop with the same account, and your meetings are covered too.
We built Rylo Desktop with feedback from the people who use it every day, and we're shipping improvements all the time. Try it on your next meeting and tell us what you think at support@rylo.com.
Hearing isn't a requirement for good conversation. It never was.
Tomer Aharoni Co-founder and CEO of Rylo. Passionate about accessibility, tech, and their intersection.
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