Voice to Text Offline on iPhone and Mac: Type by Voice in Any App
On iPhone, switch to the Whisper Notes keyboard and speak. On Mac, hold Fn. The words appear at your cursor, transcribed on your device with no internet connection.
On iPhone: The Whisper Notes Voice Keyboard
Switch to the Whisper Notes keyboard in any app, tap and speak, and the text appears where you are typing. It runs offline on the phone with the built-in Parakeet model, in English and 24 other European languages. It needs Allow Full Access, which you turn on in iOS Settings.
Set It Up
The app walks you through it in Settings › General › Voice Keyboard. Three steps:
- 1.In iOS Settings › Apps › Whisper › Keyboards, turn on "Whisper Notes". (On the home screen and in Settings, the app is called Whisper.)
- 2.On the same screen, turn on Allow Full Access. iOS requires it for a keyboard to talk to its own app.
- 3.In any app, switch to Whisper Notes with the globe key, then tap and speak.
Each time you turn it on, Whisper Notes opens for a moment. Tap ◀ at the top left to go back, then tap to speak.
Good to Know
- •Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Maltese
- •Talk only: there are no letter keys. To fix a word, switch back to your usual keyboard with the globe key
- •It turns itself off after 10 minutes unused (or 20 or 30, your choice), or when you turn it off
- •One dictation stops by itself after 5 minutes
- •The first use after each app update takes about 20 seconds
Recording on iPhone and Apple Watch
- •Lock Screen widget: one tap opens the app and starts recording; a Live Activity shows the time
- •Apple Watch: one tap records; the recording goes to your iPhone and is transcribed when you open Whisper Notes
- •Import from Voice Memos or the Files app; transcription runs on the iPhone
- •Copy or share the text to any app, or export it with timestamps or as SRT subtitles
On Mac: Dictate Into Any App
Anywhere you can type on your Mac, you can speak instead: email drafts, Slack replies, code comments, AI prompts. Hold Fn, talk, release, and the words appear at the cursor, with Wi-Fi off. Voice typing is in the Mac app downloaded from our website; Apple's rules keep it out of the Mac App Store version.
System-Wide Voice Input
Whisper Notes adds a global shortcut. When you release Fn, the speech model on your Mac turns the audio into text and types it where your cursor is.
- •Parakeet by default: Moondream's Parakeet Ultra, post-trained from NVIDIA Parakeet V3, at about 74× real time on a Mac
- •Whisper Large-v3 Turbo and SenseVoice also run locally
Works in: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Gmail, Slack, VS Code, Terminal, Notion
Files, Too
The same app transcribes audio and video files. Import a file and the transcript fills in as each part finishes, so you can start reading before the end.
Custom Vocabulary
Speech models stumble on names and jargon. Add your vocabulary—company names, product names, technical terms—and capitalization is preserved ("Claude Opus 4.5" stays "Claude Opus 4.5", not "claude opus").
Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, Whisper · OAuth, TypeScript, Kubernetes · HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2
Silence Handling
Whisper-family models hallucinate on long silences—repeating phrases or inventing words, because the decoder is built to always emit something. Voice Activity Detection finds the speech and trims the dead air before transcription, so there is far less silence left to fill. It reduces the problem rather than removing it; recording with clean, natural pauses helps too.
Looking to transcribe recorded audio files instead of dictating? See our offline transcription guide.
How does offline voice typing work?
Both run the speech model on the iPhone or Mac itself, so nothing is uploaded and both work with Wi-Fi off. Here is how the two compare.
iPhone vs Mac at a Glance
| iPhone | Mac | |
|---|---|---|
| To dictate | Switch to the Whisper Notes keyboard, tap and speak | Hold Fn, speak, release |
| Works in | Any app you type in | Any app you type in: Claude, ChatGPT, Slack, VS Code, Mail |
| Speech model | Parakeet, built in | Parakeet by default; Whisper Large-v3 Turbo or SenseVoice |
| Languages | English and 24 other European languages | The same 25 with Parakeet; 100+ with Whisper; Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Cantonese with SenseVoice |
| Get it from | App Store | Our website (the Mac App Store version has no voice typing) |
| Price | $7.99 once | 5,000 words a week free, then $14 once |
iPhone (iOS 18+) · Mac (macOS 14+, Apple Silicon)
How Fast on Mac?
M4 Pro: A 20-second dictation appears in about 2.5 seconds. On files, Parakeet runs at about 74× real time
M5 Air: Parakeet V3 brought a 17.5-minute meeting back in 16.7 seconds
M1 and later: Every Apple Silicon Mac runs Parakeet, Whisper and SenseVoice. Older chips are slower, still well past real-time
Dictating to AI Assistants
Prompting Claude
Hold Fn, describe your problem in detail, release, send. No copy-paste from a separate app.
Slack and Email
Hold Fn in the compose field, say what you mean, release.
First Drafts
Some writers find dictated first drafts looser than typed ones. Get the ideas out first, edit later.
Why Offline Matters
Your Audio Never Leaves Your Device
- •No server upload: processing happens on the iPhone or the Mac itself
- •No retention policy to read, because your audio is never sent anywhere
- •Confidential conversations and work notes stay on hardware you own
- •We never see your recordings or transcripts, and they're never used to train AI
Works Without Internet
- •Airplane mode, a train, a building with no signal: it still works
Pay Once
- •iPhone: $7.99 once. Mac: 5,000 words a week free, then $14 once.
- •No per-minute charges and no subscription
- •Cloud dictation is billed monthly: Wispr Flow Pro is $15 a month or $144 a year
How It Compares
| Feature | Whisper Notes | Apple Dictation | SuperWhisper | Wispr Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processing | 100% on-device | On-device for many languages | Local or cloud, by mode | Cloud servers |
| Platforms | Mac, iPhone | Mac, iPhone | Mac, Windows, iPhone | Mac, Windows, iPhone |
| Lock Screen Widget | Yes | No | No | No |
| Dictation in any app | Yes (iPhone, voice keyboard; Mac, hold Fn) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Price | $7.99 iPhone / $14 Mac, once | Free | $8.49/mo, $84.99/yr or $249.99 lifetime | $15/mo or $144/yr |
| Speech Models | Parakeet + Whisper + SenseVoice | Apple's own | Whisper variants + Parakeet | Cloud models |
| Custom Vocabulary | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Apple Dictation is free and good enough for short phrases. Superwhisper and Wispr Flow add AI rewriting for a subscription, and Wispr Flow runs in the cloud. Whisper Notes runs on the device for a one-time price. Competitor prices were checked on their sites; check them for current pricing.
Trade-offs
Local processing has real trade-offs:
Model Download
The default engine is Parakeet, built into the app, for English and 24 other European languages; it runs at about 74× real time on a Mac. For 100+ languages, download Whisper: Large V3 Turbo (~2 GB) on Mac, Whisper Small on iPhone. For Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Cantonese, SenseVoice is the fast option; on Mac, Qwen3-ASR 1.7B (Beta) makes fewer mistakes.
Apple Only
This is an Apple app, built for Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or newer) with macOS 14 and for iPhone 12 or later with iOS 18; the Mac App Store version also installs on Intel Macs, with fewer models. There is no Android or Windows version.
Speed vs Cloud
Local inference is bounded by your device rather than a datacenter. On iPhone, the App Store listing reports about 18 seconds for five minutes of audio with Parakeet on an iPhone 15, and about a minute with Whisper — so an hour-long recording is minutes, not seconds. If you need an hour-long file back instantly, a cloud service is still faster.
Accuracy Ceiling
On clear speech, the error rate is in the single digits. Heavy accents, loud background noise, or mumbling will need some editing. If you need 99.9% accuracy for a medical transcript, hire a human transcriptionist. If you need a usable draft quickly and privately, this works.
Get Started
iPhone
- 1.Download Whisper Notes from the App Store ($7.99); Parakeet is built in
- 2.Voice keyboard: in the app, Settings › General › Voice Keyboard takes you through the three steps
- 3.Recording: long-press the Lock Screen → Customize → Lock Screen → add the Whisper Notes widget
Mac
- 1.Download Whisper Notes for Mac (free for 5,000 words a week)
- 2.Allow the microphone when asked
- 3.Allow Accessibility, which the app uses to type at your cursor
- 4.If you skipped it: open Voice Typing in the left side panel and turn on Enable voice typing
- 5.Hold Fn anywhere and start talking
Voice Keyboard Questions
Is it safe to turn on Allow Full Access?
iOS requires Full Access for a keyboard to talk to its own app. The Whisper Notes keyboard has no letter keys, so it never sees what you type, and it never uses the microphone: the Whisper Notes app does the listening, on your iPhone.
Does the voice keyboard work offline?
Yes. The built-in Parakeet model turns your speech into text on the iPhone. Nothing is uploaded, and it works with no internet connection.
Which languages does it support?
English and 24 other European languages, the ones Parakeet covers. It does not dictate Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Catalan or any other language outside those 25.
Does it save what I say?
No. The keyboard keeps no note, no audio and no history. The text goes into the app you are typing in, and nowhere else.
Why does Whisper Notes open when I tap the keyboard?
The app does the listening, so it has to be running. Each time you turn the keyboard on, Whisper Notes opens for a moment; tap ◀ at the top left to go back, then tap to speak. It stays on until you turn it off or it goes unused for 10 minutes (20 or 30 if you choose).
Does the voice keyboard cost extra?
No. It is included when you buy Whisper Notes on the App Store ($7.99 once), with no subscription. The Mac app from our website is a separate purchase and doesn't include it.
Type by Voice on iPhone and Mac
On iPhone, $7.99 once. On Mac, 5,000 words a week free, then $14 once. No subscription.
Download on the App Store - $7.99Voice keyboard on iPhone · Fn key dictation on Mac · Lock Screen widget · 100% offline · One-time purchase
Related
How Fn voice typing works, how to set it up, and how it compares with Apple Dictation, Superwhisper and Wispr Flow
What works offline on iPhone and Mac, which engine runs where, and the limits
Turn recorded audio files — meetings, interviews, voice memos — into text, fully offline
Head-to-head comparison: Whisper Notes vs MacWhisper, Otter.ai, SuperWhisper, and cloud alternatives