Offline Dictation and Voice Typing Apps

Handy is a free, MIT-licensed speech-to-text app for people who want to dictate wherever they type on a computer. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Transcription happens locally, so your voice stays on your machine and the app can work offline.

VoiceInk is a native macOS dictation app for people who want to write emails, notes, and AI prompts by speaking. It transcribes speech locally and works across applications, so writers, students, and developers can dictate into the apps they already use. Voice transcription works offline.

Whisper Notes is an offline transcription app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Silicon Macs. It's for people recording interviews, lectures or meetings who need the audio and transcripts to stay on their device. It requires no account and has no cloud sync, analytics or tracking.

ScribeDog is a Markdown editor for writers and note-takers who want AI assistance while keeping their documents on their own hardware. It displays formatted text, tables and images instead of Markdown syntax, but saves ordinary .md files that work with Git and other editors. It has a native desktop app and a self-hosted Server Edition available through Docker.

OpenWhispr is a free, MIT-licensed dictation and meeting transcription app for people who want voice input across their apps with control over where processing happens. It's available on macOS, Windows, Linux and iOS. Local transcription works offline and keeps audio on your device; optional cloud transcription sends audio to the selected provider, whose retention policies apply.

Amical is a free, open-source AI dictation app that formats spoken text for the app you're using. It's for people who want voice input for email, chat, coding prompts and everyday writing, with a choice between local processing and cloud models. It runs on macOS and Windows, with mobile apps for iOS and Android.

MacWhisper is a native macOS transcription app for people working with interviews, lectures, meetings and other recorded audio. It runs speech recognition on your own Mac, so local transcription keeps audio on your device. It also offers cloud transcription through services such as OpenAI, ElevenLabs and Deepgram, which send audio off your machine.

WhisperWriter turns microphone speech into text and types it into the window you're working in. It's for people who want voice input in their existing desktop apps, with a choice between transcription on their own computer and an external service. The Python app runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and uses the GPL-3.0 open-source license.

Witsy is an AGPL-3.0 desktop AI assistant for macOS, Windows and Linux that connects MCP tools to local and cloud models. It's for people who want document chat, writing help and voice features in one app, with a choice of where their models run.

Enconvo is a native AI assistant and agent for Mac that can use your screen and selected text as context, then work inside your apps. It's for people who want help with writing, research and everyday tasks alongside the app they're using. A sidebar keeps the agent beside the current app, while text selection tools give quick access to editing and translation.

BoltAI is a native Mac app for people who want local LLMs and cloud AI services in the same workspace. It runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs and suits coding, writing, research and document analysis. The interface uses SwiftUI and AppKit.

nerd-dictation is an open-source dictation utility for desktop Linux that recognizes speech locally through VOSK. It's for people who want voice input in their existing applications and are comfortable with a command-line tool. Audio processing stays on your machine, and recognition works offline.

OpenSuperWhisper is a local speech-to-text app for people who want to dictate or transcribe recordings on an Apple Silicon Mac. It supports Whisper and Parakeet, with model downloads available inside the app. The project is open source under the MIT license.

Superwhisper is an AI dictation app for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android that turns speech into text in the app you're using. It's for people who prefer speaking to typing, including developers dictating requests to coding assistants. Speech recognition can run locally and offline, or use cloud models for remote processing.

Whispering turns speech into text through a browser interface, a Chrome extension, or a desktop app. It's for people who prefer dictating to typing and want a shortcut to start recording. The app is open source under AGPL-3.0-or-later.

Speech Note combines offline dictation, reading aloud and translation in a desktop app for Linux and Sailfish OS. It's for people who want to take multilingual notes, type by voice or listen to text without sending their words to a cloud service. Speech and text processing stay on your device; models are downloaded separately through the app's graphical browser.

Google AI Edge Eloquent is an AI dictation app for iPhone and iPad that turns spoken thoughts into edited text using on-device Gemma models. It's for people who prefer speaking to typing but don't want every hesitation or self-correction carried into their notes and drafts.