Local speech-to-text for macOS. Hold a key, speak, release — your words appear right where your cursor is. Everything runs on your Mac.
⬇ Download the latest release — open the DMG and drag Hearsay to Applications.
Or with Homebrew:
brew install --cask swairshah/tap/hearsay| Action | Default shortcut |
|---|---|
| Record | Hold Right Option (⌥) and speak |
| Transcribe | Release the key — text is pasted at your cursor |
| Hands-free mode | ⌥Space to toggle recording, Space or Esc to stop |
| Screenshot while recording | ⌥4 to select a region, ⌥3 for the full screen — images are referenced in your transcript |
All shortcuts (and the Hold vs. Toggle activation style) are customizable in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts.
Transcribed text is pasted at your cursor and copied to the clipboard — both behaviors can be toggled in Settings.
Every transcription is saved locally in History — find recent ones in the menu bar dropdown, or open the Hearsay window and click any line to copy it again. If a transcription ever fails, the audio is kept and you can retry it from History with one click.
- Grant Microphone permission when prompted
- Grant Accessibility permission (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility)
- Pick a speech model to download:
- Parakeet — English and multilingual, Apple Silicon (recommended)
- Qwen — fast and high-quality, works on all Macs including Intel
- Whisper — English transcription (Apple Silicon)
You can download, switch between, and delete models anytime from the Models tab.
Everything lives in one window with a sidebar:
- Settings — clipboard/paste behavior, sound effects, dock icon, history size, and keyboard shortcuts
- Models — download, activate, and delete speech models: Qwen Fast (0.6B) / Quality (1.7B), Whisper tiny.en / small.en, Parakeet English (v2) / Multilingual (v3)
- Microphone — pick your input device
- Replacements — automatic text substitutions applied to transcripts
- Cleanup & Post Processing — rules and LLM-powered polishing for transcribed text
- History — every transcription, click a line to copy it, retry failed ones
- Permissions — check and fix Microphone/Accessibility access
- macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
- Apple Silicon or Intel
- Hearsay ships with a
hearsayCLI (hearsay dictate,hearsay history,hearsay logs, …). Apps and editor extensions can use Hearsay as a local dictation provider — see the Local API Integration Guide. - Speech backends: qwen-asr by antirez, WhisperKit, and NVIDIA Parakeet via FluidAudio.
- Build instructions and architecture: DEVELOPMENT.md
MIT