TongueType for macOS
Hi HN, I'm a longtime web dev, but this is my first macOS app. Feedback is very welcome <3 I built TongueType because every dictation app I tried failed at least one of three things: it sent my audio to someone's cloud, it charged me monthly fee, or it felt clunky or enterprisy. The cloud thing kills it for anything sensitive. The subscription thing is insulting for what amounts to "Whisper + a hotkey." TongueType runs Whisper locally on Apple Silicon via CoreML. It's built to feel like a second keyboard: tap the hotkey, talk, let go, words appear. It sits in the menu bar (no dock icon, no…
TongueType for macOS launched on May 21, 2026 with 109 votes, #275 of 20,538 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches.
What it does
TongueType is a macOS voice dictation app powered by Whisper AI running locally on Apple Silicon. No cloud, no accounts, no subscriptions. Hold a key, speak, release. Your words appear. Supports 12 languages and audio file transcription. TongueType gives you a configurable press-to-talk hotkey, audio and video file transcription, and configurable post-processing rules. It's customizable and fun (try Rainbow Mode!) and it's built to be the fastest dictation workflow possible.
TongueType is a free macOS voice dictation app powered by Whisper AI running locally on Apple Silicon. No cloud, no accounts, no subscriptions. Hold a key, speak, release. Your words appear instantly. Supports 12 languages and audio file transcription.
Hold a key. Speak. Release. Your words appear like magic. Powered by Whisper AI running entirely on your Mac. No cloud. No accounts. No subscriptions. Typing is so 2025. Hold your hotkey, say what you mean, let go. TongueType transcribes your speech faster than your fingers could ever dream of moving. Perfect for emails, Slack messages, code comments, and those LLM prompts that somehow became your whole job. Got a meeting recording? An interview? That voice memo you swore you’d listen to later? Drag in WAV, MP3, MP4, or MOV. TongueType eats them all and spits out text. Locally, obviously . No cloud. No servers. No analytics. No “anonymous usage data.” Your audio never…from tonguetype.app
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN, I'm a longtime web dev, but this is my first macOS app. Feedback is very welcome <3 I built TongueType because every dictation app I tried failed at least one of three things: it sent my audio to someone's cloud, it charged me monthly fee, or it felt clunky or enterprisy. The cloud thing kills it for anything…
Does a similar job
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DictatoFeb 2026 · dicta.to · ▲93I built a macOS dictation app where everything runs on-device. Transcription, auto-correct, translation. No audio or text leaves your machine. It ships with 4 transcription engines you can swap between: WhisperKit (99 languages), NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B (25 European languages, fastest of the bunch), Qwen3-ASR 0.6B (30 languages), and Apple Speech on macOS 26+. They all run through CoreML/Metal. Whisper is the most versatile, Parakeet wins on raw latency for European languages, Qwen3 does better with CJK. I went with a protocol-based architecture so you pick the engine that fits your…
DictlyOct 2025 · dictly.app · ▲240TL;DR: I built a native macOS dictation app that transcribes locally and instantly. Text appears as you speak (measured ~100 ms first‑character latency). No accounts, no servers, no tracking. Links: • Website: https://dictly.app • Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/dictly-no-keys-just-clarity/id... • Free download; optional Pro tier (pipelines, unlimited history, etc.) What it does Real‑time transcription — streaming text while you talk, not after you stop. Quick‑Capture Overlay (macOS) — global hotkey, drop text into any app/field.…
SaylineJan 2026 · sayline.app · ▲83I built a voice dictation app for macOS mostly because I was tired of how awful Siri is and I didn't want to pay a subscription for cloud tools. The app uses NVIDIA's Parakeet v3 (TDT) as the primary engine. Inference is handled by the FluidAudio library. It's insanely fast on M-series chips. For Intel users, I added local Whisper support ranging from Tiny up to Large v3 Turbo (quantized to save space). The interesting part was the AI integration. I originally tried to pipeline the ASR output into Apple's Intelligence Foundation Model. It was a nightmare, because the content moderation…
SpokeMar 2026 · usespoke.app · ▲102Dictate into any Mac app by holding a key. Spoke runs fully on-device using local AI — no cloud, no account, no subscription. $9.99 one-time.
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