Dictator
There’s been a wave of coverage this week about people switching from typing to talking. I’m one of them — and with the existing tools, the more advanced features were locked behind a subscription.
So I built my own.
Dictator is a menu-bar dictation app for macOS. Hold a hotkey, talk, let go, and your words appear in whatever app you’re in. Everything runs locally on-device — nothing leaves your machine. No subscription, no account, no telemetry.
It also has an Assistant Mode — highlight some text, hold a different hotkey, and tell it what you want done. The output either drops straight back in where your selection was, or opens in an assistant window for you to review first.
I’m making it available for free. Apple Silicon, macOS 15+ and I recommend at least 16GB RAM.
This is brand new, so please be patient if there are issues. If you do try it, I’d love to hear what works and what doesn’t.