ClearDictate
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Dictation for macOS · Free

Dictation that never leaves your Mac.

Hold Fn, speak, release. Clean text is pasted wherever your cursor is. Speech is transcribed on the Mac itself, with no account and no tracking.

Download for Mac Deployment guide

Free · Apple Silicon · macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Signed and notarised

How it works

Three steps, in any app that takes text.

01

Hold Fn

Or a shortcut you choose. ClearDictate lives in the menu bar and starts listening while the key is held.

02

Speak

A live preview shows your words as you say them, so you can see it has understood you.

03

Release

Clean, punctuated text is pasted at the cursor, in about 0.2 seconds.

Per-app styles. Casual, Formal, Code or Default, set for each app.
Searchable History. Kept on your Mac. Delete entries any time; IT can set retention.
Personal dictionary. Suggests names and terms from your edits in History.
The privacy promise

No tracking. Not reduced, not anonymised. None.

Read the security architecture
  • 01No analytics, telemetry, crash reporting or ads.
  • 02No account and no sign-up.
  • 03In the default on-device mode, no audio or text is sent anywhere.
  • 04History and dictionary are stored only on your Mac.
  • 05Cloud features are optional, off by default, and IT can lock them off.
Engine
NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3
Runs on
Apple Neural Engine
Speed
About 0.2 s per dictation
Languages
25 European languages
For IT

Ready for managed Macs.

Deploy the signed DMG with your MDM and control ClearDictate with a standard configuration profile. Works with Jamf, Kandji, Intune and Mosyle.

  • Force on-device only, so audio and text never leave the Mac
  • Point the model download at an internal mirror
  • Set history retention, including “don’t keep history”
Deployment guide Sample .mobileconfig
com.megakad.dictationapp.plist Managed preferences 
<key>ForceOnDevice</key>
<true/>
<key>ModelMirrorURL</key>
<string>https://models.example.internal</string>
<key>HistoryRetentionDays</key>
<integer>0</integer>

Questions

All questions
Is it really free?

Yes, for individuals and whole organisations. There are no tiers and no account. Everything runs on your Mac, so there are no servers for us to charge you for.

Does any audio leave my Mac?

Not in the default on-device mode. Audio is only sent if someone turns on the optional OpenAI cloud engine with their own key, and IT can lock that off.

Is ClearDictate SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certified?

No. We hold no certifications. On-device mode is designed to help you meet GDPR and UK GDPR data-minimisation duties; the Compliance page explains how.

Which Macs does it run on?

Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later.