Hold a key,speak, let go.

Free dictation for macOS. Warble types what you say into any app, and NVIDIA Parakeet transcribes it on your Mac.

Mail

Can we move the design review to Thursday afternoon? I want the new onboarding flow in front of everyone before we lock the release.

Mail · 24 words

Hold the key, then let go. Sample text from Warble’s preview mode; no microphone is used.

Warble’s History pane: dictations grouped by day, each with the app it went into, its word count and length

One window

Searchable and grouped by day, with the app each dictation went into, its length and optional audio replay.

The parts you touch

The recording pill while listening, with a live waveform — **The recording pill**One piece of Liquid Glass near the bottom of the screen: waveform, dots, then a check mark.

Your keyfn, Right ⌘, F5 or Ctrl+Space. Hold it, or press once to start and once to stop.

Quick togglesLanguage, mode, pill and sounds, one click away in the menu bar.

Spoken punctuationSay “comma”, “period” or “new line” when it is switched on.

ReplacementsSay “my email” and get the address. Rules run on your Mac after every dictation.

Setup step where you pick your key and language — **Setup**Permissions, the speech model, your key and language, then a practice run.

warble set-language pl

Command lineStatus, hotkey, language, autostart, and transcribing an audio file.

The pill as a small circle with a check mark after the text is typed — **Typed**The check mark stays for 1.2 seconds, then the pill is gone.

While you hold the key

Recording	16 kHz mono audio, from your input	while held
A brushed key	is ignored, nothing is typed	under 0.25 s

After you let go

Parakeet TDT v3	transcribes on the Neural Engine	on your Mac
Spoken punctuation	turns “comma” into a comma	if switched on
Your dictionary	fixes names, expands shortcuts	on your Mac
The text	is pasted at the cursor	in the app in front
The pill	shows a check mark	for 1.2 s
Your clipboard	is put back as it was	after 1 s
History	keeps the text and the app’s name	Application Support

Nothing leaves your Mac
No accountNothing to sign up for or log in to.
No subscriptionFree, with no word limit.
OfflineAfter one model download from Hugging Face.
Mic on, key downAudio is recorded only while you hold the key.
Plain JSONHistory and dictionary in Application Support.
No analyticsNo crash reporting either.

Compared	Warble	Typical cloud dictation
Price	Free	Subscription, or a capped free plan
Word limit	None	Weekly cap on free plans
Where speech is processed	On your Mac	Remote servers
Account	None	Required
Works offline	Yes	No
Source code	Open, MIT	Closed

Warble is not the only app that keeps speech on your Mac. Handy, VoiceInk, Superwhisper and MacWhisper run local models too. Warble’s take is a native macOS 26 app on the Neural Engine, free and MIT licensed, that does dictation and nothing else. Read the privacy page

Woodblock print of a green parakeet on a branch of dark red seed pods under large green leaves, on a black ground — “Parakeet”, after a design by Itō Jakuchū, ca. 1900. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.

The model is called Parakeet

NVIDIA Parakeet TDT v3 runs on the Neural Engine through FluidAudio. It downloads once, about 500 MB, and then works offline.

Warble began as a fork of open-wispr by human37, with one narrow goal: fast, local dictation in Polish. Its config still carries over on first launch.

For whole calls and meetings with the speakers told apart, there is EchoPad, built on the same model.

25 languages
or Auto-Detect
ENEnglish
PLPolish
DEGerman
FRFrench
ESSpanish
ITItalian
PTPortuguese
NLDutch
SVSwedish
CSCzech
+18All 28 codes

Install in one command

```
git clone https://github.com/pieralukasz/warble.git
```
First, clone it
Needs macOS 26 and Xcode 26 or its Command Line Tools (Swift 6.2).
```
cd warble
scripts/install.sh
```
Then run the script
It builds a release, puts Warble.app in ~/Applications and links the warble command.
Setup does the rest
Microphone and Accessibility, the 500 MB model, your key, a practice dictation.

Using a coding agent? Point Claude Code or Codex at the repository and ask it to follow the install steps for agents. Only the Microphone and Accessibility prompts need you. Coming from open-wispr? Warble imports its config on first launch.

Install Warble