Dictato is a private voice-to-text dictation app for Mac that transcribes speech instantly with 80ms latency. It works 100% on-device with no cloud connection and supports multiple transcription engines.

Dictato is a specialized speech-to-text dictation application designed exclusively for macOS, enabling users to convert their spoken words into written text in real time with remarkably low latency. This software is built for a wide range of users including writers, developers, students, and professionals who need to capture thoughts quickly without the physical limitations of typing. Its primary purpose is to bridge the gap between the speed of human thought and the slower pace of manual typing, allowing ideas to flow directly from speech to text in any application on a Mac. The app operates entirely offline, ensuring complete privacy by processing all audio data locally on the user's device without ever sending it to external servers, making it a secure tool for sensitive or confidential work.

Traditional typing presents significant bottlenecks for productivity and can pose physical risks. The human brain can formulate speech at approximately 150 words per minute, while average typing speed is only around 40 words per minute, creating a substantial speed gap where ideas can be lost or diluted. Furthermore, extensive daily typing, often exceeding four hours for many knowledge workers, contributes to the risk of repetitive strain injuries (RSI) affecting the wrists and hands. Existing solutions, like Apple's built-in dictation, introduce privacy concerns by defaulting to sending audio data to cloud servers for processing, and they impose frustrating limitations such as automatic timeouts after brief pauses, disrupting the natural flow of thought.

The app's first major feature group centers on its core dictation capability, characterized by exceptional speed and universal application compatibility. Dictato achieves near-instant transcription with latency as low as 80 milliseconds, meaning text appears almost as fast as the user speaks. This is accomplished by leveraging the Neural Engine in Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or newer) to run on-device machine learning models efficiently. The software works in virtually any macOS application where text can be entered, including Gmail, Slack, VS Code, Notion, Pages, and web browsers, inserting transcribed text directly at the cursor position. This eliminates the need to copy and paste or switch between windows, creating a seamless dictation experience that integrates directly into the user's existing workflow.

A second critical feature group is the comprehensive privacy and offline functionality. Dictato is architected from the ground up to ensure no audio or transcription data ever leaves the user's Mac. All speech recognition happens locally using downloaded machine learning models, with audio processed and immediately discarded after transcription. This makes the app suitable for highly confidential use cases in legal, medical, or journalistic fields where data sovereignty is paramount. The app requires no internet connection to function, enabling dictation on airplanes, in cafes without Wi-Fi, or in any offline environment. This stands in stark contrast to cloud-based alternatives that mandate a constant internet connection and raise privacy questions.

Dictato

Dictato

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