Local dictation app for macOS

Speak. The finished text is already there.

Dictation records at the press of a hotkey, transcribes right on your Apple Silicon Mac, and pastes the finished text wherever you're writing. No cloud upload, no account, no subscription — everything runs locally via Apple MLX.

Download for macOS How it works

100% local·free·no account·no cloud·no telemetry

Example: You dictate “so um can we move the meeting uh from Tuesday to Thursday at two p.m. um if that works for you”. Dictation automatically cleans it up to: “Can we move the meeting from Tuesday to Thursday at 2 p.m. if that works for you?” and pastes it via Cmd+V.

How it works

Three steps, no window switching.

From thought to pasted text, without taking your hands off what you're doing.

Press the hotkey

Double-tap the Fn key or hold Ctrl+Option. A floating pill appears at your cursor and recording starts — no matter which app you're in.

Speak

Say what you want written, in English or German. Dictation detects the language on its own and stops automatically when you're done. Esc cancels at any time.

Text appears

The cleaned-up text is pasted right at your cursor via Cmd+V — Mail, editor, chat, or terminal, without switching windows.

Features

Everything fast dictation needs — and nothing that secretly listens in.

Global hotkey

One keystroke from anywhere: double-tap Fn or hold Ctrl+Option to start recording in any app. Esc cancels, and the hotkey is customizable in Settings.

English & German

Speak English or German — Dictation detects the language automatically and applies punctuation and formatting to match the language you're speaking.

Personal dictionary

Proper names, places, and technical terms come out spelled right. Add names like Kretzschmar or Oer-Erkenschwick — they land correctly in your text instead of being misheard.

AI cleanup

A local language model tidies things up: filler words like “um” and “uh” are removed, punctuation and clean formatting are added. Cleanup is optional and can be turned off.

100% local & private

Recording, transcription, and cleanup run entirely on your Mac via Apple MLX. Audio never leaves your device and is deleted immediately after transcription.

History & snippets

Your last 50 dictations sit in a searchable local database and can be copied again with a click. Insert text snippets by voice command. History can be turned off at any time.

Transcribe audio files

Turn existing recordings — memos, interviews, meeting audio — into text via the menu bar. MP3, WAV, M4A, and more; the result lands word-for-word on your clipboard or as a subtitle file with timestamps.

Radio calls for pilots & controllers

The speech recognition has additionally been trained on over 23,000 real radio transmissions (English and German). Phraseology, callsigns, and clearances reach a word error rate of around 17% on the ATC test set — without the specialized training it would be over 50%. For everyday dictation: no trade-off.

Real IFR clearance, transcribed from noisy cockpit audio… cleared to Stuttgart via Renex three Charlie departure … climb via SID, altitude 5,000 feet, squawk 3714

100% on your device

What's spoken on your Mac stays on your Mac.

No servers, no vendor backend, no model in the cloud. Dictation launches a bundled local runtime and processes speech right on the same Mac.

What Dictation does

  • Processes audio, transcription, and cleanup entirely locally on your Apple Silicon Mac.
  • Deletes the audio recording immediately after transcription.
  • Stores history, dictionary, and snippets only locally on your Mac.
  • Fetches only a signed version file when checking for updates — and you can turn that off.

What Dictation never does

  • Uploads neither audio nor text to any cloud or third-party backend.
  • Requires no account, no API key, no sign-in.
  • Collects no tracking, no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reports.
  • Shows no ads and has no in-app purchases.

Read the full details in the privacy policy. App data lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Dictation. This website optionally uses consent-based visitor analytics — the app does not.

System requirements

What your Mac needs.

  • macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
  • Apple Silicon (M1 or later) — no Intel Macs
  • Microphone permission for recording
  • Accessibility permission for the hotkey and pasting
  • Around 8 GB of disk space for the local models — a one-time download on your first dictation
  • 16 GB of RAM recommended, so transcription and cleanup stay warm and responsive

Support

Frequently asked questions

Why does Dictation need the Accessibility permission?
The global hotkey and automatic pasting via Cmd+V only work with Accessibility access. Without the permission, the text goes to your clipboard instead. Enable it under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. After enabling it for the first time, it can take a second or two before the hotkey kicks in.
Where is my data stored?
Everything is local under ~/Library/Application Support/Dictation: the history as a database, dictionary and snippets as files. The audio recording is deleted immediately after transcription and never transmitted.
How much does Dictation cost?
Nothing. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no account. Download it, grant the permissions, and start dictating.
Which Macs are supported?
Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 or later) running macOS 14 or later. The models run via Apple MLX on the Neural Engine and GPU — Intel Macs are not supported.

Download Dictation and speak your next sentence.

Free for macOS on Apple Silicon. Auto-updates via Sparkle — signed, and easy to turn off.

Download for macOS Support

100% local·free·no account·no telemetry