Free dictation for Mac that runs entirely on your machine. Hold one shortcut, say the sentence, let go, and the words land in the field you were already typing in.
Apple SiliconmacOS 14+Free, no account
Launch checklist
Landing copy is done. The icons need one more pass.
The other side of a call could be recorded sped up and unintelligible: the rate came from a format declared when the call started, and headphones change it midway. It is now measured from the sound that arrives. On recordings over an hour the transcript also used to end with the app quitting. That cause was found and removed. And so that an interruption stops being expensive at all, finished pieces are now kept as the work goes: quitting, a restart or a flat battery no longer send the work back to the start, the next run continues from the same place.
New in 0.12.0
An Add a note line now sits above the transcript. Write what the call was about and what to do with it, and the first lines show in the list on the left, where there used to be nothing but a date. The note lives in the Markdown file itself, so it travels with the folder, opens in any editor and goes away with the recording.
Telegram, WhatsApp, Meet, Discord
Press once in the menu bar at the start of a call and once at the end. Your microphone and the sound your Mac plays are recorded as two tracks, so both sides are captured whole. They are cut into replies, recognised on your Mac and merged into one conversation with timecodes. When the sound was kept, the call plays inside the app: press the time of a reply and the recording starts there.
From a recorder, a phone, a messenger
A handheld recorder, a phone, a voice message, the sound of a meeting video. Drop the file on the app or leave it in the Inbox folder and it is picked up. What comes out is plain text in paragraphs with no timecodes, and when several people speak the app tries to tell them apart. Imported files are never deleted.
You 00:00:04 Thanks for making the time. I am recording this and will send you a copy.
Other side 00:00:11 Sure, go ahead.
You 00:00:14 Then let us start with the delivery dates.
Other side 00:00:19 The first batch ships on the fourteenth, the rest a week later.
No window to open, no button to find. The app waits in the menu bar and answers to one shortcut.
Put the cursor where you write. The shortcut is yours to change if this one is already taken, and you can switch to press-once mode instead of holding.
Your Mac listens through the model you downloaded. Nothing is streamed to a server, because there is no server of ours to stream to.
The text is inserted at the cursor and stays on the clipboard as a backup. Enter is never pressed for you, so nothing gets sent by accident.
Notes, mail, chats and prompts. The same shortcut everywhere, because the app types into the field you are in instead of asking you to switch apps.
Prototype first, then ask the team what breaks.
Spoken in 4 secondsThanks for the draft, comments coming before Thursday.
Spoken in 5 secondsRunning ten minutes late, order me a coffee.
Spoken in 3 secondsDraft a launch plan from the notes I dictated this morning.
Spoken in 5 secondsIf a field cannot take the text (a password box, a protected input, an unusual editor), the result is already on your clipboard, waiting for one paste.
Speech is recognized on-device by the model you downloaded. There is no account to create, and no server of ours for audio to travel to.
Free · Works offline
Download one model inside the app. It comes from Hugging Face once; after that you can dictate on a plane.
Fast everyday dictation with a short pause between letting go and seeing the text. 25 languages, English and Russian among them.
Wider multilingual coverage for people who switch languages often or dictate names and terms the faster model trips on.
Both run locally and can be switched in settings. Model weights are not bundled into the app, and their licences are listed inside it.
One download and two permissions stand between the DMG and your first dictated sentence.
Open the DMG and drag Bocha Voice into Applications. Launch it from there.
Pick Parakeet or Whisper and let it download. Allow the microphone, and Accessibility if you want the text inserted for you.
Choose a shortcut, put the cursor in any text field, hold it and speak. The app walks you through one practice round.
What people ask before installing an app that listens to them.
Twice: to download the app, and to download a model the first time. After that recognition happens on your Mac, and dictation keeps working with Wi-Fi off.
Apple Silicon (M1 and newer) on macOS 14 or later. There is no Intel, Windows or phone version. Keep about 630 MB free for the model.
In the text fields of ordinary apps: notes, mail, chats, editors, AI prompt boxes. Automatic insertion needs the Accessibility permission and works while the field you started in is still focused.
If a field cannot take the text, the result waits on the clipboard for you to paste.
This build is signed ad-hoc and has not been notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper asks before the first launch. The standard way to allow it is System Settings → Privacy & Security, and only if you trust the source.
There are no scripts here that switch off macOS protections.
Yes. No account, no subscription, no payment and no dictation limit. There is no cloud processing to bill for.
Dictation handles 25 languages, including English and Russian. The app interface follows your macOS language and is available in English and Russian.
The recording exists only while recognition runs and is deleted afterwards; after a crash a temporary file may remain. Dictation history is off by default. Settings can turn it on so the app holds the last five, ten or twenty phrases on this Mac and you can get an earlier one back; the list clears with one button. Either way nothing is sent to us. Your settings and downloaded models stay on your Mac.
Not yet: the repository is private while the app is in an early build. The licences of every third-party component and speech model it uses are listed inside the app.
Install it, pick a model, and dictate. Nothing to configure in the cloud, because there is no cloud.
Apple SiliconmacOS 14+Free, no account
