Dictor

Dictation that never leaves your Mac

Put the cursor in any field, hold right ⌘ and speak. Let go, and the text is there — where the cursor was. Your Mac does the transcribing itself, on the Neural Engine: no account, no subscription, no cloud.

Download Dictor 1.9.2 · 4.4 MB Apple Silicon · macOS 14 or newer
Free and open source (MIT)
The recording capsule: the waveform moves while you speak

Three moves

Nothing to open: the app lives in the menu bar and waits for the key.

  1. Step 1

    Put the cursor down

    An email, a chat, a search box, a code editor — anywhere you would normally type.

  2. Step 2

    Hold it and speak

    A capsule with a waveform appears — that is how you know you are heard. A toggle mode works too: press once to start, once to stop.

  3. Step 3

    Let go

    The text lands under the cursor. Half a minute of speech takes about half a second to process.

What it looks like

The window opens from the menu bar — though on an ordinary day you never need it.

The Today section: words dictated, time saved, recent dictations
Today. How much you said today, how much time did not go into the keyboard, and what you dictated last.
The History section: a list of dictations, search with highlighted matches, full text on the right
History. Up to 10,000 dictations, search with highlighting, pin what matters.
The Statistics section: a chart by day, a habit calendar, CSV export
Statistics. By week, month and year, with CSV export.
The Dictionary section: replacements for words the model mishears
Dictionary. A name or a term the model keeps mishearing — fix it once.
The same Today window in dark mode
Dark mode. Follows the system; nothing to switch on separately.
The menu bar panel: service state, language, microphone, recent dictations
The menu bar panel. Service state, language, microphone and recent dictations — one left click away.
Settings inside the window, seven tabs
Settings. Seven tabs inside the same window: keys, language, sound, dictionary, privacy.

Why it matters

Dictation apps ask you to trust a company with your voice. This one does not ask.

Your voice stays here

Audio is transcribed on your Mac and deleted as soon as the text is ready. It is never uploaded to a server — ours or anyone else's.

Works on a plane

The internet is needed twice: once to download the model, and every six hours to ask for the latest version number. Turn that check off and the app stops using the network at all.

You can check

The source is open under the MIT licence: what the program does with your voice is visible line by line, not just claimed.

DictorCloud dictationBuilt into macOS
Audio leaves the Macneverevery recordingfor some languages
Works offlineyesnolimited
Pricefreemonthlyfree
Searchable history10,000 dictationsvariesnone
Custom dictionaryyesusuallyno
LanguagesEnglish, Russian and 16 moreyesyes

Installing

  1. Download Dictor-1.9.2.dmg and drag the app into Applications.
  2. Launch it. On first start macOS asks for Microphone, Accessibility and Input Monitoring — without them the app can neither hear you nor paste the text.
  3. Hold right ⌘ in any field and say a few words. The shortcut is yours to change in settings.
macOS will warn about an unidentified developer. The app is signed but not notarised by Apple — that is a paid procedure and it has not been done yet. To open it: System Settings → Privacy & Security → click “Open Anyway” next to Dictor. Once, on the first install; updates never ask again.
Updates install themselves. The app checks the version number, shows you what changed and waits for your consent. Before installing it verifies the checksum of the downloaded archive and its signature — a tampered archive is simply refused.