Dicta — Your Voice. Your Mac. Your Privacy.
Fast, accurate voice dictation that runs 100% locally on your Mac. Your words never leave your device.
No internet. No account. No subscription.
Playing this video loads YouTube, which may set its own cookies.
How It Works
Hold, speak, release — wherever your cursor is.
Hold
Press and hold Right Option — or your chosen hotkey. Dicta starts listening silently in the menubar.
Speak
Talk naturally. Everything transcribes on-device — your audio never leaves your Mac.
Release
Let go. Your text appears instantly wherever your cursor is, in any app.
Why Dicta?
100% Private
100% local processingEvery word processed locally on your Mac. No cloud uploads, no data collection, no tracking — ever. Many dictation apps send your audio to remote servers; Dicta never does.
Always Offline
No internet requiredNo internet connection required. Cloud-dependent tools stop working the moment you go offline. Dicta runs entirely on your Mac — on a train, in a café, or anywhere you need to write.
One-Time Purchase
No subscriptionPay once, use forever. Dicta runs entirely on your Mac — it doesn't need a subscription, a server staying online, or any external service to keep working. No recurring fees, no usage limits, free updates delivered automatically.
Works Everywhere
Install and goInsert text directly into Notes, Mail, Chrome, Slack, VS Code, Terminal — any Mac app where you can type. No account required, no login, no profile. Install and start dictating immediately.
Built Natively for macOS
Apple Silicon nativeWritten in Swift and SwiftUI, designed for Apple Silicon. Speech recognition runs on the Apple Neural Engine via WhisperKit — tuned for M-series Macs, not a cross-platform port wrapped in a webview. It feels like a Mac app because it is one.
Actively Maintained
Updated automaticallyDicta is an independent product built and used every day by the developer who made it. Updates arrive automatically — you'll always know what changed and why. No corporate roadmap, no deprecation notices, no sudden discontinuation.
Private by Design — in the app and on this site
no personal dataYour speech, transcriptions, and dictated text never leave your Mac — no usage tracking, no behavioural profiling, no ads. The app sends anonymous crash reports so I can fix what breaks; this website uses cookieless analytics. Neither carries personal data or anything that identifies you.
Pay Once. Own It Forever.
Dicta
£14.99
one-time — no subscription
You’re buying fast, private, on-device English dictation. Multilingual and a higher-accuracy mode are included free as beta extras — more demanding on your Mac and still being refined.
- ✓All features included
- ✓Free updates for v1.x
- ✓No account required
- ✓No internet required
- ✓No data collection
Dicta is an independently distributed macOS application that is digitally signed and notarised through Apple's security process.
Everything You Need
Core Dictation
Press & Hold Hotkey
Hold Right Option to record, release to insert. That simple.
Hands-Free Lock Mode
Double-tap to lock. Dictate without holding any key. Tap once to finish.
Configurable Hotkey
Choose Right Option, Right Command, Right Control, or set your own custom combination.
Cursor-Aware Insertion
Text appears exactly where your cursor is, preserving existing formatting.
Secure Field Detection
Automatically skips password fields. Your security comes first.
Menubar Design
Invisible until needed. Lives in your menubar, stays out of your way.
Voice Control
Intelligent Punctuation
Punctuation and capitalisation are added automatically as you speak. Say 'period' or 'question mark' for precise control.
Voice Commands
11 formatting commands: new line, new paragraph, bullet point, and more.
Recent Transcripts
Quickly access your last 5 transcriptions. Copy any to clipboard.
Language & Intelligence
British & American English
Toggle between British and American spelling. Colour or color — your choice.
Custom Dictionary
Add specialist words so Dicta always gets your vocabulary right.
Multilingual Support (Beta)
Included free, in beta: dictate in 99 languages via an on-demand model — Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Hindi, and more. It's more demanding on your Mac and still being refined; fast, private English is the polished default.
Advanced Speech Engine
Powered by WhisperKit — state-of-the-art speech recognition running on the Apple Neural Engine. Fast, accurate, entirely on your Mac.
Dicta vs. Cloud Dictation
Cloud dictation tools send your voice to remote servers and charge monthly fees. Dicta does neither.
Works Wherever You Type
Dicta works with any Mac application that accepts text input — browsers, email, documents, code editors, messaging apps, and more.
Requires macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later, Apple Silicon • 8 GB RAM minimum (16 GB recommended) • ~1 GB storage
All processing happens on your Mac. Performance varies with hardware — Apple Silicon Macs deliver the fastest results.
Your Voice, Your Formatting
Dicta automatically adds punctuation and capitalisation based on the natural flow of your speech. For precise control, use these voice commands to insert specific punctuation or formatting exactly where you need it.
Punctuation
Formatting
Tips for Optimal Use
Get the best results from Dicta with these simple habits.
Speak a few sentences or a paragraph at a time, then let Dicta transcribe before moving on. This gives the best balance of accuracy and speed.
A sentence or two, pause, let it process — then continue. Dictating in natural blocks helps the speech engine deliver more accurate results.
Since all processing happens locally on your Mac, longer audio means longer processing time and higher memory usage. Short bursts keep things snappy.
Don’t over-enunciate or slow down unnaturally. The speech engine is trained on natural speech patterns and handles them remarkably well.
Say “new paragraph”, “bullet point”, or “comma” to add formatting as you speak. It’s faster than going back to edit afterwards.
Ready to Dictate Privately?
Download Dicta and start speaking. Your words stay on your Mac — always.