Mumble

Talk to your Mac. It types back.
A tiny, completely free menu bar app that turns your voice into text — instantly.

Hold Fn → speak → release → text appears at your cursor.
Exactly the way you wanted it.

_{Signed & notarized · macOS 14+}

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Why Mumble?

Because typing is overrated. Mumble sits quietly in your menu bar and lets you dictate into any text field on macOS. It figures out where you are — Slack, email, iMessage, a Google Doc — and adjusts the tone to match.

Casual message to a friend? Mumble keeps it chill. Work email? Mumble cleans it up. You just talk.

Completely Free

Mumble is powered by Groq's whisper-large-v3 model — the most accurate open speech-to-text model available, running at lightning speed on Groq. Groq's free tier requires no credit card and gives you:

• 2,000 requests/day — that's 2,000 individual dictations
• 8 hours of audio/day (28,800 seconds) — more than enough for all-day use
• 20 requests/minute — plenty for natural dictation

Just grab a free API key from console.groq.com and you're set. No subscriptions, no trials, no catch.

What You Get

• Push-to-talk with Fn — hold to record, release to transcribe. No clicking, no waiting.
• Instant text insertion — transcribed text drops right into whatever app you're using.
• 7-day recovery history — every completed transcription is kept locally for 7 days in a dedicated History tab so you can recover text if paste misses.
• Context-aware tone — Mumble detects the active app and adjusts formatting automatically.
• Blazing fast transcription — powered by Groq's whisper-large-v3 for maximum accuracy at incredible speed.
• Zero clutter — lives in the menu bar, no Dock icon, no windows in your way.
• Guided setup — onboarding walks you through API key, permissions, and preferences.
• Custom dictionary — add vocabulary corrections so Mumble always spells your names, jargon, and brand terms the right way.
• Smart formatting — an LLM pass automatically structures your dictation based on the active app (email gets greeting/body/sign-off, messaging stays casual with emoji, code preserves technical terms, and everything else gets clean punctuation). Detected from the frontmost app's bundle ID and page title; toggleable in Settings.

Getting Started

Download

Grab the latest release from GitHub Releases — the app is signed and notarized, so you can run it straight away. Requires macOS 14+ (Sonoma) and a free Groq API key (no credit card required).

The app will walk you through the rest.

Build from Source

For contributors or if you prefer to build locally — you'll need Xcode 15+ and a free Groq API key.

brew install xcodegen          # one-time setup
cd /path/to/Mumble
xcodegen generate              # generate the Xcode project
open Mumble.xcodeproj          # Cmd+R to build and run

How It Works

    You speak        Mumble listens       Groq transcribes      Smart formatting     Text appears
  ┌──────────┐      ┌─────────────┐      ┌────────────────┐    ┌───────────────┐    ┌───────────┐
  │ Hold Fn  │ ──▶  │  Record mic │ ──▶  │  Whisper API   │ ──▶│ Context-aware │ ──▶│ At cursor │
  └──────────┘      └─────────────┘      └────────────────┘    │   LLM format  │    └───────────┘
                                                                └───────────────┘
                                                                       ▲
                                                                ┌──────┴───────┐
                                                                │ Detect app:  │
                                                                │ email? chat? │
                                                                │ code? other? │
                                                                └──────────────┘

Under the hood: DictationManager orchestrates everything — shortcut monitoring, audio recording, Groq API transcription, context-aware formatting, and text insertion via Accessibility APIs.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
Fn key not working	System Settings > Keyboard > set "Press fn key to" → Do Nothing
No accessibility permission	System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility > enable Mumble
No microphone permission	System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone > enable Mumble
Text not inserting	Make sure a text field is focused in the target app before recording. If a paste still misses, open History in Settings and copy the saved transcription.

Rebuilt or moved the app? You may need to remove the old Accessibility entry and re-add it.

Known Limitations

• Fn key can conflict with certain macOS keyboard settings
• Browser URL detection doesn't work with all browsers
• Requires an internet connection (no offline fallback yet)
• Only Fn key is supported for now (custom hotkeys coming soon)

On the Roadmap

• Custom hotkey support
• Multi-language transcription
• Local Whisper model for offline use
• User-defined tone profiles

License

See LICENSE for details.