hold ⌥ space
Hold to talk
Hold the shortcut and speak. The pill shows which app you're typing into, and the words appear as you say them. Release, and the final text lands at your cursor.
Free · Open source · macOS
You talk. Rekody types.
Free, open-source dictation for your Mac. Hold ⌥ Space and speak. Let go, and the text lands at your cursor in any app. It all runs on your machine.
macOS 13+ · Apple Silicon (Intel via the CLI) · no account · no telemetry
0:07tap ⌥ + space to stop…and the words land as I say them
lands at your cursor in…or anywhere else you type~100ms
See it in action
Thirty seconds, start to finish.
Muted by default · turn sound on for the voice
~100msKey release → final text
0Network calls while dictating
~35 MBOne native binary, not Electron
Measured on the default on-device engine. Speech models download once at setup; dictation itself never touches the network.
How it works
Hold for a quick note. Tap to go hands-free.
tap ⌥ space
Tap for hands-free
Quick-tap the shortcut instead, and keep talking as long as you like. Tap again to stop. Made for longer dictation, or when your hands are busy.
Privacy
Nothing leaves your Mac. Unless you say so.
Transcription happens on your machine by default. No account, no analytics, no audio saved. Cloud engines are a per-engine opt-in with your own key, and either way there is no Rekody server your voice could be sent to.
The code is MIT-licensed on GitHub, so you don't have to take our word for it.
Data sent to us
- Analytics events
- 0
- Audio saved to disk
- 0 bytes
- Account required
- no
- Cloud sync
- never
- Update checks
- manual
How it compares
Where Rekody wins. And where it doesn't.
Rekody next to Apple Dictation, Wispr Flow, MacWhisper and Superwhisper. Every cell comes from the vendor's own site, docs, or privacy policy. The rows we lose stay in the table.
yesno not published by the vendor
Checked July 2026 against each vendor’s official pages. Corrections welcome: hi@rekody.com
See the full comparison, sources and allReady in about a minute.
Download the app, drag it to Applications, then hold⌥ Space and say something.
macOS 13+ · Apple Silicon · auto-updates · free
Live in the terminal? The open-source CLI installs with Homebrew and also runs on Intel Macs.
Runs on-device by default. Cloud engines are optional and labeled. Prefer curl, make, or cargo? See the README.