/01
Hold the key
The capsule above the Dock wakes up and starts listening. It is the one permanent sign that push-to-talk exists — a modifier key leaves no trace otherwise.
Dictation · on your Mac
Dictation for Mac that never leaves your Mac.
Hold a key, say the sentence, let go — the words land in whatever app you were typing in. The speech model runs on your own machine, so the thing you just dictated is not a request to somebody’s server. It is part of Eidetic, the private meeting recorder, and it needs no account of its own.
Three seconds of muscle memory.
/02
Say the sentence
Words appear while you are still speaking, about a second after you start. The final text comes from a full re-decode, so a sentence next to a pause is never clipped.
/03
Let go
The text is pasted where your cursor already was. Eidetic waits for the words to actually land before restoring your clipboard, so nothing arrives truncated or stale.
What you get that a cloud dictation tool cannot give you.
Cloud dictation is fast because someone else’s GPU is doing the work — which means every sentence you speak is uploaded, and the privacy question becomes a policy question. On-device dictation makes it an architecture question instead.
Your voice and the recognised text stay on the machine you are typing on.
No account, no sign-in, no per-seat billing — the licence is a file, not a login.
Works with the network off, once the model is on disk.
Hesitation sounds are dropped; spoken punctuation is opt-in and needs an activation word.
The same engine that transcribes your meetings — one model on disk, two jobs.
Dictation dictionary
learnedopen router→OpenRouter
энэйтэн→n8n
and throw pick→Anthropic
gitthub→GitHub
Every entry here was made by correcting a word after a dictation — never by uploading your writing. Two corrections that land on the same written form confirm each other, so the rule follows what you meant rather than what the recogniser happened to hear that day.
Nothing here is uploaded. No model is trained.
How Mac dictation apps compare.
Prices and capabilities checked on 28 August 2026. Eidetic is our product — the table says where each tool actually processes your voice, which is the part that matters.
| Tool | Speech processed | Account | Works offline | Learns your words | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eidetic | On your Mac | No account | Yes | Yes, from your corrections | €49 once (meetings included) |
| macOS built-in dictation | On your Mac (Apple silicon) | Apple ID for some features | Yes | No | Free |
| Wispr Flow | Cloud | Required | No | Yes | Free tier, Pro €12/user/mo |
| superwhisper | On your Mac or cloud | Required for Pro | Yes (local models) | Custom vocabulary | Free tier, Pro from $8/mo |
| MacWhisper | On your Mac | No account | Yes | Custom vocabulary | Free, Pro €65 once |
Choose Wispr Flow if you want the same dictation on Windows, iOS and Android and are comfortable with cloud processing. Choose superwhisper or MacWhisper if you want a dedicated transcription workbench with many models and export formats. Choose Eidetic if you want one on-device app that both records your meetings and types for you.
Questions people actually ask.
- Does the dictation work offline?
- Yes. The speech model is downloaded once and then runs on your Mac, so dictation keeps working on a plane, in a basement, or with the Wi-Fi off. An internet connection is only needed to download models and to activate a licence.
- Which key starts a dictation?
- Right Option by default. In Settings you can switch to left Option, right or left Control, right Command, or fn/Globe. Only keys that type nothing on their own can hold a dictation, so nothing is ever swallowed or double-typed.
- Which apps does it type into?
- Any app that accepts a paste — Mail, Slack, Notes, a browser text box, an editor, a terminal. Eidetic puts the text where the cursor already was and then hands your clipboard back.
- Is my voice sent anywhere?
- No. Audio is recognised by a model running on your Mac and the recognised text goes straight into the app you were typing in. Nothing is uploaded for processing and no model is trained on what you say.
- Can it learn names and jargon?
- Yes. Correct a word by hand right after dictating and Eidetic keeps the fix. A single respelling is learned at once; a multi-word or cross-script fix — «Энэйтэн» → n8n — is learned the second time you make it, so a rewrite is never mistaken for a rule. The dictionary lives in a file on your Mac.
- What does dictation cost?
- Dictation is included in Eidetic and is unlimited while the feature is new — there is no separate dictation subscription. The app itself is €49 once for unlimited meetings, after 6 free ones.
- What do I need to run it?
- macOS 13+ on an Apple silicon Mac (M1 or newer). Dictation asks for microphone and accessibility permission the first time you use it.
Stop typing what you could just say.
Dictation is included in Eidetic, together with the meeting recorder, the local transcripts and the summaries. One download, one licence, nothing uploaded.
Download for Mac6 complete meetings free · No card required · macOS 13+ · M1 or newer