Best Dictation Software for Mac
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What is Dictation Software for Mac?
Dictation software is a tool that allows users to convert spoken words into written text through speech recognition technology. It is commonly used for writing documents, taking notes, or controlling computer systems without the need for typing. These platforms use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms to accurately transcribe spoken language in real time. Dictation software often includes features such as voice commands for punctuation, editing, and formatting, making it easier to create and modify text without using a keyboard. It is widely used in fields such as healthcare, legal, journalism, and business, where efficiency and hands-free operation are important. Compare and read user reviews of the best Dictation software for Mac currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
VoiceboxMD
Zuzis
Advanced medical dictation software is built for physicians and practitioners. Works on all EHR platforms and mobile. Powered by Machine Learning algorithms, VoiceboxMD's Medical Dictation software is designed to be constantly learning and achieving the highest efficiency in medical and clinical documentation. Every word is clearly transcribed and displayed instantly in the EHR. We understand that accuracy in documents is essential in the medical field. With a self learning algorithm, VoiceboxMD ensures highest efficiency is achieved with usage. We take extra measure to ensure our medical dictation reach the accuracy to the highest level possible. -
2
Wispr Flow
Wispr Flow
Wispr Flow is an AI voice-to-text app that turns natural speech into clear, polished writing across apps and devices. The platform lets users dictate messages, documents, code, notes, emails, and replies up to four times faster than typing. Wispr Flow automatically removes filler words, fixes typos, improves formatting, and transforms rambling speech into clean written text. It works across Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android, helping users write wherever they work. The platform includes AI auto-edits, a personal dictionary, snippet shortcuts, multilingual transcription, and support for more than 100 languages. Built for professionals, creators, students, developers, accessibility users, and teams, Wispr Flow helps people capture ideas faster and write more naturally with their voice.Starting Price: $12 per month -
3
VoiceNote
VoiceNote
VoiceNote is a private dictation tool for Windows and Mac that runs entirely on your own computer. Hold one hotkey, speak naturally, release — finished, cleaned-up text appears wherever your cursor is: email, Slack, documents, code editors, any app, no plugins. Audio is transcribed locally and deleted immediately; nothing is ever uploaded — switch on airplane mode and it keeps working. Every correction you make becomes a permanent rule, so your names, jargon, and phrasing come out right and keep getting better. No account, no subscription: a one-time purchase. Your voice never leaves your machine.Starting Price: $49/user/one-time -
4
Rubil
Rubil
Voice dictation for Gmail, Slack, Notion + 20 apps. Auto-formats your speech. Audio never stored. 1000 words free daily. Voice dictation for every web app you use. Speak naturally — Rubil formats your speech into clean, ready-to-send text. Properly structured emails. Concise chat messages. Clean document prose. Works across 20+ web apps where knowledge workers spend their day. No cleanup. No rewrites. No copy-paste. No post-editing. Audio is processed instantly through secure transcription and never stored. No transcript history. No voice files on our servers. Your glossary is encrypted both on your device and in the cloud. Teach Rubil your world. Add names, acronyms, and jargon once. Rubil applies them every time you dictate. Voice dictation and voice typing in one click: 1) Hit the mic 2) Speak naturally — ramble, self-correct, think out loud 3) Rubil formats your speech and drops it right in. Done. Free: 1,000 words/day. Pro: $9/mo for unlimited.Starting Price: $9/month -
5
Express Scribe
NCH Software
Express Scribe is a free audio player specifically designed for typists and transcription work. Featuring foot pedal control, variable speed, speech to text engine integration and support for a wide variety of audio formats including dss, dct, wav, mp3, wma and more. Audio recordings can be loaded automatically from email, LAN, FTP, local hard drive and Express Delegate. Traditional hand held dictation recorders can also be docked.Starting Price: $39.95/one-time/user -
6
SnipNotes
SnipNotes
SnipNotes is your clever notebook on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Capture new ideas with Siri, dictate your thoughts, and create styled text notes with images. Quickly add content from other apps with drag & drop or save your clipboard automatically. Access your notes from anywhere with the versatile home screen widgets. Create reminders for your notes and protect them with a passcode or Touch ID/Face ID. Create styled text notes with images and a variety of formatting options. Dictate notes in the app, with Siri, and on your Apple Watch. Save content from websites and other apps with drag & drop or the share sheet. Capture the contents of your clipboard automatically in split-screen on iPad or when launching the app. Save your current location at any time. For example, the parking lot of your car. Read, search and create notes on your Apple Watch. A wide selection of widgets let you view and open your notes right from the home screen.Starting Price: Free -
7
Aqua Voice
Aqua Voice
Aqua Voice excels at common daily tasks, outperforming all other services. While it benchmarks worse on lecture transcription, this was due to it rephrasing rambling speech into more concise language, rather than incorrect word recognition. Ask Aqua to rephrase, shorten, or clean up your text while maintaining your tone. Automatically removes unnecessary fillers for polished, professional writing.Starting Price: $10 per month -
8
Voicenotes
Voicenotes
Voicenotes is the easiest and most intuitive way to capture your thoughts and bring them to life. Instead of typing or jotting down notes, just speak your mind. Our app allows you to record your ideas, transcribe them automatically, and use them to create anything from a detailed blog post to a quick tweet. Plus, with our innovative “ask your AI” feature, you can interact with your notes to ask questions and get reminders, ensuring you never forget or miss important details. Record new ideas, family moments, meetings, podcast takeaways, anything. Ask your AI to review past notes or brainstorm new ideas, it has a perfect memory. Create a summary, to-do list, blog post, and more using your notes. Intelligent suggestions, 50+ languages, and a zillion small things. Available on the web, iOS, Android, and soon on smartwatches. Commitment to privacy, longevity, and beauty. Go ahead, and record a quick note; there's no sign-up required.Starting Price: Free -
9
TalkTastic
TalkTastic
Seamlessly integrate crazy accurate dictation across all your macOS applications. Magically understands your context and writes in your app, instantly. More accurate than ChatGPT & OpenAI Whisper. Combines on-device AI with multimodal LLMs to help you write what you mean. Only listen when you say so. Snapshots only on command. Change your settings anytime, anywhere. TalkTastic’s patent-pending technology interprets what you're saying based on what it sees on your computer screen. It combines the capabilities of Apple Dictation, on-device Whisper, ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini into one powerful, easy-to-use package. When you trigger a new note inside another app, TalkTastic analyzes a snapshot of your chosen app using advanced multimodal AI. The LLM understands the tone, style, and substance of your conversation while accurately spelling people's names and easily-confused words.Starting Price: Free -
10
TalkText
TalkText
TalkText is an AI-powered dictation tool designed to enhance productivity by converting natural speech into polished text across various applications on macOS. By pressing 'option + space', users can dictate in any app, and TalkText refines the input by removing filler words and correcting mistakes, resulting in clear and professional text. The tool also offers a 'restyle' feature, allowing users to select any text and instruct TalkText to rewrite it in a desired tone or style, such as making it more empathetic or confident. Supporting over 30 languages, TalkText ensures accurate transcription and proper formatting, including capitalization and punctuation. Privacy is a priority, with real-time audio processing that is not stored or used for model training. The platform offers a free tier with up to 2,000 words per month, with options to upgrade for unlimited usage.Starting Price: $6.50 per month -
11
Willow Voice
Willow Voice
Willow Voice is an AI-powered dictation tool that is fast, accurate and works on any app. Just speak naturally, and Willow formats your text the way you want it without commands. Speak your thoughts and watch them turn into text. Willow fixes mistakes and formats your words automatically. It adapts to your natural style on any platform. Willow remembers the names and words you use. Willow works on every computer-based website or app, with no copy and pasting, and no context switching. Writing emails shouldn’t be exhausting. Willow saves hours each week by making it as easy as talking. Increase accuracy by adding custom dictionaries for your unique words. Built with end-to-end encryption to keep your data secure at all times. Your voice and text remain private and in your control. Dictate in ten other languages with the same accuracy.Starting Price: $12/user/month -
12
MacWhisper
MacWhisper
MacWhisper is an all-in-one Mac transcription app for transcribing files, meetings, lectures, podcasts, videos, subtitles, voice memos, and private recordings. The app lets users drag and drop audio or video files, record online meetings, capture app audio, and use real-time dictation in any app. MacWhisper supports Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, Discord, and other meeting platforms without requiring bots to join calls. Its local AI models help users transcribe sensitive files offline so data does not have to leave the Mac. The platform includes speaker recognition, filler-word removal, translation, transcript search, editing, batch transcription, exports, summaries, chat, and custom AI prompts. Built for professionals, students, creators, researchers, journalists, and privacy-conscious users, MacWhisper helps turn speech and media into clean, searchable, editable text.Starting Price: €59 one-time payment -
13
Dictate⁺
Dictate⁺
Dictate⁺ offers outstanding sound quality, impressively accurate voice activation, secure encryption, and a wealth of transcription options for your dictations. With Dictate⁺, you always have a dictaphone with you on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, and you can send your dictations to your transcriptionist from anywhere. With an optional Bluetooth foot switch, you can even dictate hands-free. Dictate⁺ offers a variety of sharing methods for your dictations, such as e-mail, FTP, WebDAV, SFTP, and cloud services. It generates MP4 and WAV files which can be read by almost any transcription software. The all-new folder system keeps your dictations organized at all times. For doctors, lawyers, accountants, appraisers, journalists, and anyone who dictates a lot, information security is a top priority. You can restrict access to Dictate⁺ with biometric access control, and for maximum security, you can encrypt all data in Dictate⁺ with AES-256.Starting Price: Free -
14
Dictation - Voice to Text
Christian Neubauer
Dictation - Voice to Text is an application that enables users to dictate, record, and translate text instead of typing, facilitating text generation in a 'dictation' setup with one speaker in front of the microphone. It supports more than 40 languages for dictation and over 40 languages for translation, allowing users to switch between different language projects with a single click. It offers AI-based transcription capabilities, allowing users to transcribe audio recordings, videos, voice memos, URLs, and YouTube content using OpenAI's speech recognition technology. Both audio recordings and text files can be accessed via the Apple 'Files' app and shared along with the text. With iCloud synchronization enabled, text is automatically synchronized across all devices running Dictation, including iPhone, iPad, macOS, and Apple Watch. It also supports the system font size setting and provides configurable button sizes for visually impaired users.Starting Price: Free -
15
Monologue
Every
Monologue is a voice-to-text productivity app for Mac that lets users speak naturally and have their words converted into polished writing, while adapting to their personal style, vocabulary, and typical contexts. It supports over 100 languages, auto-recognizes user-specific phrasing (jargon, custom terms, etc.), works across many apps (like text editors, email, docs), and offers features like punctuation insertion, editing while dictating, voice commands, and integration with open models so the transcription is both fast and private. The goal is to help people “stay in the flow” of their ideas without interrupting momentum for typing; Monologue claims to reduce friction between thinking and writing, letting users dictate emails, documents, notes or drafts using voice, then edit or refine as needed. The interface is simple, with minimal latency, and it emphasizes letting the speaker maintain their style (not forcing standard patterns).Starting Price: $100 per year -
16
Typeless
Typeless
Typeless is a content personalization platform that helps brands automate writing, testing, and optimization of digital messages (emails, SMS, pushes, landing pages) through AI. It connects via API or app integrations to data systems (CRM, CDP, data warehouse) so audience segments, attributes, and behavior signals can power content variation. For each message, Typeless generates multiple personalized versions, adjusting tone, style, structure, or message body, then sends partial samples to small audience slices to AB test and choose the best performer. Over time, it learns which creative variants work best for specific segments and behavior patterns, driving improved engagement and conversion. The system supports multi-step messaging flows, campaign orchestration, and creative governance (ensure consistency, compliance, or brand voice). By closing the loop between data, content generation, and performance, Typeless enables marketers to scale personalized messaging.Starting Price: $12 per month -
17
VoiceInk
VoiceInk
VoiceInk is a native macOS dictation app that uses local AI models to instantly turn speech into clean text with near-perfect accuracy and complete privacy. It works across apps, letting users dictate emails, messages, notes, prompts, documents, and code without changing their workflow. Local models keep audio and processing on the Mac, while cloud providers are optional and only used when connected and selected by the user. Global shortcuts support toggle recording, push-to-talk, retry, cancel, and paste actions without reaching for the app. A personal dictionary teaches VoiceInk names, technical terms, unusual spellings, phrases, and Smart Replace shortcuts for frequently used text. Contextual awareness can use selected text, clipboard content, or visible screen text to improve transcription and AI-enhanced output. Modes let users save different transcription models, enhancement prompts, context settings, output behavior, and shortcuts for specific apps, websites, or tasks.Starting Price: $29 one-time payment -
18
Spokenly
Spokenly
Spokenly is an AI-powered dictation app for Mac, iPhone, Windows, and Linux that turns speech into clean, punctuated text wherever you work. Hold a shortcut, speak naturally, and release to place the transcription directly at the cursor in browsers, email, chat, word processors, IDEs, terminals, and other apps. It supports more than 100 languages, including mixed-language dictation, and offers both local and cloud speech-to-text models. Whisper, Parakeet, and other on-device models can run completely offline, while cloud engines from providers such as OpenAI, Deepgram, Groq, Soniox, and ElevenLabs can be used for higher-accuracy or real-time transcription. Local Only Mode blocks network requests so voice data stays on the device. Modes let users save different transcription models, AI providers, prompts, and output styles for specific tasks, while AI Instructions can remove filler words, fix grammar and punctuation, summarize, rewrite, translate, or reformat dictated text.Starting Price: $8.33 per month -
19
Handy
Handy.computer
Handy is a free, open source, cross-platform speech-to-text app that runs completely offline and puts whatever you say directly into any text field. Press and hold a configurable keyboard shortcut, speak, and release; Handy records your voice, transcribes it locally, and pastes the result into the app you are using. Push-to-talk is enabled by default, but users can switch to a toggle mode that starts and stops recording with separate key presses. Handy supports macOS, Windows, and Linux and keeps voice data on the computer instead of sending audio to cloud services. Users can choose between Whisper models and Parakeet V3, Whisper provides broad multilingual support across more than 99 languages, while Parakeet V3 is optimized for fast CPU performance and automatic language detection. Silence is filtered with voice activity detection, and GPU acceleration is available for Whisper where supported.Starting Price: Free -
20
FluidVoice
ALTIC
FluidVoice is a free, open source macOS dictation app that pairs local speech recognition with Fluid-1, an on-device AI model for polishing dictation. One hotkey lets users speak into any text field across email, documents, chat, terminals, code editors, and other apps, with text appearing in near real time. Local speech models keep dictation on-device and work offline, while optional AI post-processing can use Fluid Intelligence, OpenAI, Groq, or custom providers. Fluid-1 cleans up rough dictation, fixes formatting, capitalization, dates, names, and numbers, and adapts tone to the active app without changing the speaker’s meaning. Users can create custom prompts for different apps, while Write Mode, Command Mode, and Direct Dictation make it easy to switch contexts. FluidVoice supports more than 40 languages across models including Nemotron Speech 3.5, Parakeet Flash, Parakeet TDT v2 and v3, Cohere Transcribe, Apple Speech, and Whisper.Starting Price: Free -
21
Pocket
Pocket
Pocket is a screen-free personal AI assistant designed to capture thoughts and conversations in the real world, then turn them into organized, actionable knowledge. With one tap, it records meetings, client calls, brainstorms, ideas, and personal reflections so users can stay present instead of taking notes. Pocket uses two studio microphones and one contact microphone for clear, speaker-separated audio, including phone calls without speaker mode, with a recording range of up to 15 meters. Its AI generates transcripts, crisp summaries, action items, to-dos, and dynamic mind maps in more than 120 languages, helping users recall what mattered and see what to do next. Pocket is model-agnostic and can use systems such as GPT-5, Claude, and Gemini to match the task. Ask Pocket lets users question their captured conversations, while summary styles, custom templates, speaker identification, daily highlights, meeting reminders, and task integrations turn recordings into reusable workflows.Starting Price: $16.59 per month -
22
DictaFlow
DictaFlow
DictaFlow is an AI dictation app for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android via Telegram that turns messy speech into clean text wherever the cursor is. Hold a keyboard shortcut, mouse button, or VDI-safe trigger, speak naturally, and release to insert text directly into email, documents, IDEs, EHRs, browsers, terminals, notes, and remote desktops. It is built for the messy parts of dictation, including names, acronyms, code terms, drug names, clinical shorthand, contract language, accents, and more than 100 languages. DictaFlow understands mid-sentence corrections such as “actually” and “I mean,” so users can fix mistakes without breaking rhythm, and AI cleanup can turn rough speech into emails, bullets, code comments, meeting notes, prompts, or formatted text as they talk. Users can also highlight existing text in apps such as Word, Slack, or VS Code and edit it by voice.Starting Price: $5.75 per month -
23
Paraspeech
Paraspeech
Paraspeech is a speech-to-text app for Mac and iOS that turns spoken thoughts into clean text with a simple hold, speak, and release workflow. On Mac, users press and hold a hotkey in the app where they want to write, speak naturally, and release; Paraspeech processes the recording and attempts to insert the result directly into the active editable field, with clipboard fallback for unsupported fields. Apple Silicon Macs can use supported local speech modes, allowing audio to be transcribed on-device and work offline after setup, while eligible cloud-backed paths are also available depending on the selected backend. Fast local models cover English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and 25-language dictation, while Multilingual Large expands coverage to more than 100 languages where available. AI Rewriting can turn rambling speech into cleaner, formatted text through Cloud Cleanup or, where supported, an on-device rewrite model.Starting Price: $14.99 per month -
24
Apple Dictation
Apple
Apple Dictation is a built-in macOS feature that lets users speak to enter text anywhere they can type. Once Dictation is enabled, it can be started with the Microphone key, a customizable keyboard shortcut, or Start Dictation, then stopped with Escape, the same shortcut, or the Microphone key. On Apple silicon Macs, users can continue typing while they dictate, and Dictation resumes listening after keyboard input stops. Spoken commands can insert emoji, punctuation, new lines, and new paragraphs, while supported languages can automatically add commas, periods, and question marks. Dictation supports text of any length and stops automatically after 30 seconds without detected speech. When macOS is uncertain about a word, it underlines the text so users can choose an alternative or correct it manually. Multiple Dictation languages can be enabled and switched while speaking, and users can select a preferred microphone or let macOS choose automatically.Starting Price: Free -
25
Dictation Speech to Text
IBN Software
You can now add custom words to improve speech recognition! Find the list in setup->manage custom words. Dictation Speech to text allows to dictate, record, translate and transcribe text instead of typing. It uses latest speech to text voice recognition technology and its main purpose is speech to text and translation for text messaging. Never type any text, just dictate and translate using your speech! Nearly every app that can send text messages can be configured to operate with 'Dictation Speech to text'. Dictate uses the builtin speech to text recognition engine. Dictation Speech to text supports more than 40 languages. Dictate offers 3 text zones, indicated by language flags, for which you can configure a different language in the settings. Thus you can switch between different language projects with a singe click. Translation is as easy as pushing the translation button. You can specify the translation target language in the app settings.Starting Price: $4.49 one-time payment -
26
Express Dictate
Express Dictate
This digital dictation software can dramatically improve turn-around time and lets you work wherever you want. It is quicker to send, higher quality and more reliable than traditional dictation options. It will also keep track of the progress of work and expected completion time. As an alternative to dictating at your computer you can also use your existing portable dictaphone or other digital dictation recorder while you are away from your computer. The Express Dictate 'Dock' feature lets you transfer the dictation quickly and easily and send it to your typist electronically. Digital audio recording with superb signal processing quality. Automatic non-destructive editing with multiple record modes including record-insert, record-overwrite and record-at-end. Ability to prompt for patient or file data before recording starts. Dock analog or digital handheld dictation recorders and transmit recordings made when away from your computer.Starting Price: $9-99 one-time payment -
27
Aiko
Sindre Sorhus
Aiko is an AI-powered audio transcription app for macOS, iOS, and visionOS. The app converts speech to text from meetings, lectures, recordings, and other audio files using OpenAI’s Whisper model running locally on the user’s device. Aiko is designed for high-quality on-device transcription, making it useful for sensitive recordings that should remain private. The app supports Shortcuts, allowing users to build workflows for recording, transcribing, copying, saving, or processing transcripts. It is available as a Universal Purchase across supported Apple platforms. Built for Apple users who need private speech-to-text, Aiko helps turn audio into text without sending recordings to cloud transcription services.Starting Price: Free -
28
Thinkbuddy
Thinkbuddy
Set up your shortcut keys and radically transform how you work. if you have a question, just ask out loud. Receive answers with GPT-4 quality. A quick chat is ready for you and everything is at your fingertips. Press the shortcut after selecting the text, and AI will execute your spoken or typed command. Customize your shortcuts, quickly adapt with a few tries, and start using them immediately. Enjoy clutter-free prompts with our clipboard paste that intelligently appends your text. Create your custom prompts, use them whenever you want, and save your time. Leverage OpenAI Whisper-powered dictation for answering emails & writing messages. Switch between models without monthly cost and get the best Mac experience for less. Choose the text you want to respond to, and we'll present you with the most likely options based on the selected text and the app you're using. Select the email, press your shortcut, and simply choose from the options provided.Starting Price: $10 per month -
29
Superwhisper
Superwhisper
Superwhisper is a voice-to-text app that lets users dictate, transcribe, and control writing workflows across apps without relying on the keyboard. The platform works on Mac, Windows, and iOS, with voice input that can be used in tools such as Slack, Cursor, Notion, Claude Code, Codex, and other agentic coding apps. Superwhisper supports push-to-talk, custom shortcuts, file transcription, meeting recording, custom modes, vocabulary settings, and AI-enhanced output. Users can create modes for different tasks, languages, tones, formats, prompts, and applications. The platform supports more than 100 languages and lets users choose from models such as GPT, Claude, Llama, Grok, Gemini, and others. Built for fast-moving professionals, developers, writers, and teams, Superwhisper helps turn speech into polished text, commands, transcripts, and AI-ready prompts.Starting Price: $8.49 per month -
30
Dictanote
Dictanote
Dictanote is a modern notes app with built-in speech-to-text integration, enabling users to voice-type notes in over 50 languages. It combines a rich-text editor with advanced speech recognition, allowing seamless switching between voice and keyboard input. Users can organize their thoughts, ideas, and research into unlimited notebooks, each containing multiple notes, facilitating efficient categorization. Dictanote supports custom voice commands, enabling automation of repetitive text entries and correction of dictation errors. It also offers AudioScribe, a smart AI writing assistant that transcribes voice notes into clear, summarized text, automatically adding punctuation and removing filler words. All notes are securely encrypted on Dictanote servers, ensuring data privacy. It also provides Dictanote Transcribe, a service that converts pre-recorded audio files into text.Starting Price: $5 per month