Hushpiece耳语同传
Zoom translated captions, without the add-on
In short: Zoom's translated captions are a paid feature that the meeting host has to have. Hushpiece is a free, on-device interpreter for Mac that listens to the Zoom meeting itself and shows live subtitles in your language — whoever hosts, whatever plan they're on. No account, no time limit, and the meeting never leaves your Mac.
What Zoom charges
- Translated captions come with Business Plus and the Enterprise tiers, or as an add-on of about $5 per user per month on another paid plan.
- They are host-gated: if the host's account doesn't have them, nobody in the meeting gets translated captions.
Source: Zoom translated captions: plans and pricing
Get it free with Hushpiece
- Install Hushpiece. The setup guide asks what you speak and what they speak, downloads the on-device models, and asks for Microphone and Screen & System Audio Recording permission.
- Menu bar → Listen to → zoom.us, so only the meeting is translated — not music or videos.
- Click Start Interpreting before the call. Subtitles in your language appear in a panel at the bottom of the screen, with the original underneath.
- Want them to hear your translation? Install a virtual audio device (the free BlackHole, for example) and pick it in zoom.us → Settings → Audio → Microphone. Without one, your translation appears on the right of the panel to read out or paste into the chat.
Only you install it. The host and the other participants don't need anything, and no paid Zoom plan is involved.
Side by side
| Zoom translated captions | Hushpiece | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Business Plus / Enterprise, or ~$5/user/month add-on | Free |
| Who needs it | The host's account | Just you |
| Processing | Cloud | On your Mac, offline |
| Other meeting apps | Zoom only | Any app, including Teams and Google Meet in the browser |
| Your translation spoken to them | — | With a virtual audio device |
| Languages | Many more | 9: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese |
| Translation quality | Cloud models | macOS on-device models: fine for everyday business talk, sometimes stiff with names |
FAQ
Is it really free?
Yes. Everything runs on macOS's own on-device models, so there are no server costs to pass on. The code is MIT-licensed on GitHub if you want to check what it does.
What do I need?
A Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 26 or later.
Does it record the meeting?
No audio is saved. Each session leaves a text transcript on your Mac, which you can delete any time.
macOS 26 · Apple silicon · or brew install --cask zhitongblog/tap/hushpiece