Private dictation for Mac
Hold a key, say what you mean, and clean writing appears where you are already typing. Fast enough to keep up with a thought. Nothing you say leaves your Mac, and nothing rewrites it.
Apple silicon Mac · macOS 26 or later · English
Speed is an internal on-device median for a natural 30–40 word breath, not a cross-product comparison.
How it works
Pick the key that feels natural, or tap to start and stop if holding is hard.
Pause, backtrack, finish the thought.
Your clean sentence appears at the cursor and you carry on.
The finish
Cleanup is a fixed set of rules, not a chatbot. If a rule is not sure, you get exactly what you said.
You say: um could you send the notes from today thank you
You get: Could you send the notes from today? Thank you.
Fillers out, punctuation and capitals in, your meaning untouched.
You say: I’ll send it Tuesday, no, Wednesday
You get: I’ll send it Wednesday.
Say the fix the way you would to a person.
It heard Shivonne.
You spell it Siobhan. It remembers.
Names, places and the words only your world uses. Taught once, kept on this Mac.
Optional Format lays out greetings, paragraphs, lists and sign-off spacing for emails. It is off until you turn it on.
Speed
Transcription and cleanup run on your Mac’s own chip, so there is no upload, no round trip and no spinner. Let go of the key and your sentence is on the page before you reach for the mouse. You can even start the next thought before the last one has landed.
The app shows your own words per minute from your own dictations. The founder’s everyday average is about 173, roughly four times his typing. A personal field note, not a study.
The three states you see in the app’s pill, in the order you see them.
Privacy
Take Dictation does its work on your Mac from the first word to the last. There is nothing to sign up for, nothing to sign in to and nothing listening in. We never have your dictation, so there is nothing for us to hand over, lose or be breached out of.
Compared
| Take Dictation | Built-in Mac dictation | Cloud subscription apps | Local Whisper apps | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $39 once, household | Free | $12–15 a month, per person | $20–65 once, per Mac |
| Where your voice goes | Stays on your Mac | On device or Apple’s servers, by language and setting | Their servers | Stays on your Mac |
| What rewrites your words | Fixed rules only | Nothing | An AI model | Often an AI model |
| Keeps listening | While you hold the key | Stops after 30 s of silence | Varies | Varies |
| Account | None | None | Required | Usually none |
| Download beyond the app | None to choose | None | None | 250 MB to 3 GB model |
Built-in dictation facts from Apple’s Mac User Guide. Other columns describe the category as of October 2026; see the named comparison pages for specifics.
Details
Missed the field? They stay a week, on this Mac.
The app uses your Mac’s own mic, so no call-quality drop.
Capitals only where a sentence starts. No stray full stop.
A file activates it. No account. Offline never locks you out.
Available now
One purchase for the whole household. A fully featured 14-day trial. No subscription waiting in the wings.
Needs an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 26 or later. English dictation.
Buy on the pricing page, or try it free first.
A full refund within 30 days of purchase. No conditions.
For businesses
Take Dictation does all of its work on the Mac it runs on. There is no cloud service behind it, no account in front of it and none of your dictation on our side to protect.
Enterprise Priced for your team, on request.
Audio, transcript and cleanup never leave the machine. No upload, no round trip, no copy on a server.
The app has no sign-up and no sign-in, so there are no identities to manage and nothing that lets us see how your people use it.
An update check, your licence code when you activate with one, and a weekly check that your licence is still active. Never what anyone said. A licence file activates it with no connection at all.
Let go of the key and the sentence is on the page before you reach for the mouse, on the Mac’s own chip.
Household licences cover a home. For a team, an office or a client base, tell us the size and the setting and we will quote. Ask about organisation licences
Take Dictation is a Mac app that turns what you say into clean writing at the cursor. Hold a talk key, speak naturally, and keep going with your day.
No. Dictation audio and transcript are processed on your Mac. The app may check a signed update feed, and once licensed it checks weekly that the licence is still active. Neither check carries anything you said.
Built-in Mac dictation gets words onto the page, and it stops after 30 seconds of silence. Take Dictation is built around a quieter finish: Tidy cleans punctuation and formatting while keeping your meaning, and your text appears where you are already typing.
Those apps send your voice to their servers and use an AI model to rewrite it, for a monthly fee per person. Take Dictation keeps everything on your Mac, uses fixed cleanup rules, and costs $39 once for the household.
An Apple silicon Mac running macOS 26 or later, dictating in English. Intel Macs are not supported.
Yes. Set the talk key to tap to start and tap to stop, and choose the key that is easiest for you.
Yes. The 14-day trial is the same software as the paid app, not a reduced version. It asks for no payment details and does not turn into a charge on its own.
