Most productivity tools make an implicit trade: you get convenience, they get your data. Your meeting recordings go to their servers. Your project notes live in their database. Your AI assistant learns from your conversations to improve their product. The deal is rarely stated that plainly, but it's the deal.
LifeDash is built on a different premise: your work stays on your machine. Full stop.
What LifeDash Does
LifeDash is a desktop application for Windows that combines four tools professionals use every day — and usually pay for separately:
- Meeting Recorder — Record any meeting from any app (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, or even a phone call on speaker). AI running locally on your machine transcribes in real time and generates a summary with action items when you stop recording. No bots join your call. No audio leaves your computer.
- Kanban Boards — Visual project management with drag-and-drop cards, custom columns, and an AI agent that can create tasks, reorganize your board, and surface what needs attention next — based on context it already has from your meetings.
- AI Assistant — A context-aware assistant that knows your projects and meetings. Ask it to draft a follow-up email from a transcript, break down a feature into tasks, or just help you think through a problem. Bring your own API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) or run a local model via Ollama.
- Focus Timer — Time-block your work sessions. The app tracks what you worked on and how long, giving you a record of where your time actually went — without sending that data anywhere.
Why Local-First Matters
The phrase "local-first" gets used loosely, so let's be specific about what it means in LifeDash.
Your data — meeting recordings, transcripts, project boards, AI conversations — is stored in a local SQLite database on your computer. When you close the app, everything stays where it was. There is no background sync, no telemetry on your work activity, and no account required to run any feature.
When you use the AI assistant with a cloud provider like OpenAI, your messages go to that provider's API. That's a choice you make explicitly when you add an API key. If you prefer full local operation, Ollama support lets you run capable open-source models entirely on your own hardware — nothing leaves your machine at all.
This isn't just a privacy talking point. It has practical benefits: the app works offline, it's fast because nothing waits on a server, and your data doesn't disappear if a subscription lapses or a company shuts down.
The Open Source Commitment
LifeDash is completely free and open source under the MIT license. That means the full product — meeting recorder, kanban boards, AI assistant, focus timer — is yours to use, fork, and modify. There are no paywalls, no artificial limits, and no vendor lock-in.
Development happens in the open on GitHub, where anyone can contribute, share prompts, and help shape the roadmap.
Built by Someone Who Uses It Every Day
LifeDash is a solo project. It exists because its builder needed these tools, found the existing options unsatisfying — either too expensive, too cloud-dependent, or too fragmented — and decided to build something better.
That context shapes every product decision. Features get added because they solve real workflow problems, not because they make a landing page look more impressive. The roadmap is driven by what's actually useful in a working day.
If that sounds like the kind of tool you've been looking for, you can download it for free from the homepage. No account required to get started.