Private. Audio stays on your device.
The speech model runs on your own processor. No recording is written to disk and no audio is sent to any server. There is no account and no telemetry.
Version 1.0.0 for macOS and Windows
Talk and it types. Local AI dictation for Mac and Windows.
Hold a key and speak and release it. The words appear in the app you are using. A Whisper model on your own computer does the work and your voice never leaves it.
Free to try for 14 days. macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Windows 10 or 11 (64 bit).
Works in every app.
Hold the key in a note or an email or a chat or a code editor. The text lands in the field that has focus. Dictate never takes focus and has no window of its own.
One subscription for every x4ops app.
Free for 14 days. Then one x4ops subscription for 9.99 EUR every 6 months covers Dictate and every x4ops app on up to 3 computers.
How it works
Three steps and no window
Dictate is a menu bar app on macOS and a tray app on Windows. There is nothing to open before you talk.
Hold the key
Hold Right Option on macOS or Right Ctrl on Windows. A small pill near the bottom of the screen reads Listening.
Speak
Talk at a normal pace. Names and terms you added to the vocabulary come out right. Up to two minutes per hold.
Release
Let go of the key. The pill reads Transcribing for a moment and the sentence appears with a capital first letter and a period.
Hold to talk
Hold it and speak and release it to insert the text.
Right OptionorRight Ctrl
Hands free
Press it once to start listening and once more to stop and insert.
Control+Option+DorCtrl+Alt+D
The first key is macOS and the second is Windows. Both are rebindable in Settings. The Hotkeys and modes guide explains the rules.
What is inside
Everything you need and nothing else
- Hands free mode
- Press Control+Option+D or Ctrl+Alt+D once to start listening and once more to stop. The same toggle sits in the menu bar or tray menu.
- Five models to choose from
- From tiny at 72.0 MB to large-v3-turbo at 1542.9 MB. The default small model (461.1 MB) downloads once on the first dictation and loads from disk after that.
- 100 languages
- Auto detect by default or pin one language from the list. The model hears what you speak and types it in that language.
- Vocabulary and replacements
- Teach the model your names and terms. Turn a spoken phrase such as my email into the typed address every time.
- Clean text
- A capital first letter and a period at the end by default. Switch on the filler word remover to drop um and uh and er.
- Paste or type
- Paste through the clipboard and restore what was there. Or type key by key for terminals and remote desktops that block paste.
- History
- Your last 100 transcripts with a Copy button per row. A dictation that landed in the wrong field is one click away.
- Rebindable hotkeys
- Pick any modifier key alone for hold to talk or a combination for both. Changes apply at once without a restart.
- Launch at login
- One checkbox in Settings and Dictate sits in the menu bar or the tray after every restart.
Privacy
Audio never leaves this computer. The only network calls are the model download and the license check.
That sentence sits in the Settings window of Dictate. The model download comes from huggingface.co once per model. The license check talks to license.x4ops.com about once a day and sends a hash of the machine and the key and the app version and nothing else. Your history stays in the Dictate folder on your computer until you clear it. Read the privacy page.
Pricing
One subscription. Every x4ops app.
Try the full app free for 14 days. Then one x4ops subscription for 9.99 EUR every 6 months covers Dictate and every x4ops app on up to 3 computers. Cancel any time.
Try it
Free
for 14 days
- The full app with every model and both hotkeys
- Free for 14 days from your first launch
- No account and no sign up
- The same download as the paid version
Subscription
x4ops subscription
9.99 EUR
every 6 months. cancel any time
- One person on up to three computers
- Every x4ops app with every update
- Refund within 14 days of a payment
- Email support from x4ops
Free to try for 14 days. Subscribe to keep using it.
Questions
Which computers does Dictate run on?
On macOS Dictate needs macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon (M1 or later). There is no Intel build. On Windows it needs Windows 10 or 11 (64 bit) and comes as a zip with Dictate.exe inside.
Does my voice leave the computer?
No. Audio never leaves this computer. The only network calls are the model download and the license check. The model download comes from huggingface.co once per model and the license check talks to license.x4ops.com about once a day. The Privacy guide lists every field that is sent.
Is the trial the full app?
Yes. The download on this site is the full app and it is free to try for 14 days. After that the hotkeys stop inserting text until a license key is entered. The License and trial guide explains it.
I already have an x4ops subscription. Do I pay again?
No. The x4ops subscription covers every x4ops app so the same key works here and a computer counts once however many x4ops apps it runs. Enter the key in Dictate under Settings and then License.
Which macOS permissions does it need?
Microphone to hear you and Accessibility to paste the text and listen for the hotkeys. Dictate asks for both on the first launch. Windows asks for nothing.
How big is the download?
The app itself is a few hundred megabytes. The speech model is separate and downloads once on the first dictation. The default small model is 461.1 MB. The Models and languages guide lists all five.