Hold Fn anywhere
No window switching. No recording panel. Wherever the cursor is, that is where your words appear.
Open source · Free · Local-first dictation for Mac
Speak. It writes.
Scribe puts Whisper inside your Mac. No account, no subscription. Use your voice to write emails, notes, code, and messages — anywhere there is a cursor.
macOS 14+ MIT License No cloud transcription
Hold Fn and speak. Release, and the text lands at your cursor.
Works inside the apps you already use
Notes 
Mail 
Messages 
Slack 
Telegram 
Gmail 
Arc 
VS Code 
Cursor 
GitHub 
Raycast 
ChatGPT 
Claude 
Notion 
Obsidian 
Linear Everywhere
It is not another input method — it is a voice layer you can use anytime.
Scribe does not ask you to switch into a special editor. It does one thing: it pastes what you just said, cleanly, at the current cursor.
Whisper runs on-device
After the model is downloaded, inference happens offline. Audio never leaves the machine — write emails, code comments, or private notes safely.
Mixed languages, no problem
Built for bilingual workflows. Handles English jargon, product names, and on-the-fly language switches without losing context.
Fast 140 MB
Balanced 210 MB · current
High Quality 600 MB
Designed for flow
Less interface, more momentum.
A small menu-bar presence, models you download on demand, a global hotkey. You stop noticing it — until you realize you no longer want to type long sentences.
Privacy by default
Your voice never leaves this Mac.
Audio is used locally, just for the current transcription. No accounts. No telemetry. Nothing sent to a third-party service to come back as text.
01 Audio stays local
Recording is used only for this transcription.
02 No account
No user IDs, no subscriptions, no cloud workspace.
03 Offline after setup
Once the model is downloaded, it runs offline.
Tiny surface
Just one small capsule, to show it is listening.
Open source
You can audit how it works — and fork your own version.
Scribe is MIT licensed. For a tool that touches your voice input, "you can read the code" matters more than "trust us".
Open the GitHub repoFAQ
A few things you might want to know first.
Does it need an internet connection?
Only to download the Whisper model the first time. After that, recognition and pasting all happen on your Mac.
Why the Fn key?
Fn sits in a comfortable spot on a Mac keyboard, rarely conflicts with other shortcuts, and feels right as a hold-to-talk trigger.
Does it work on Intel Macs?
The project targets macOS 14+. Apple Silicon is the better experience, especially for on-device model inference speed.
How do I uninstall?
Delete /Applications/Scribe.app. To clear the models too, remove ~/Library/Application Support/Scribe.
Give your keyboard a break.
Download, grant mic and accessibility access, then hold Fn and start speaking.