Local voice-to-text for your Mac.
Press a shortcut, speak, paste. No cloud, no API keys, no subscriptions.
Version 0.4.2 · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon & Intel
Download Wave · Also available for iOS
Wave is a menu bar voice-to-text app that runs entirely on your Mac. Press a shortcut, speak, and the transcribed text pastes into whatever app you're in. Powered by WhisperKit on the Apple Neural Engine, so your audio never leaves the machine.
- Press Option+Space (or your custom shortcut)
- Speak. A floating preview shows your words in real time.
- Press the shortcut again (or click the menu bar icon) to stop.
- Transcribed text gets pasted into the active app.
- Works in any app. Text pastes wherever your cursor is (TextEdit, Notes, Slack, browser, VS Code).
- Real-time preview HUD showing confirmed and tentative text as you speak.
- Push-to-talk or toggle. Hold the shortcut to record and release to transcribe, or tap twice.
- Language auto-detection or pick one of 99 supported languages explicitly.
- Transcription quality controls. Smart filler removal (strips "um", "uh", stutters, context-aware fillers like "basically" and "sort of"), auto-punctuation from Whisper, and a 1-second trailing buffer so your last words aren't clipped.
- Session behavior. Optional silence auto-stop (30s to 10 min or never), sound cues when recording starts / stops, and auto-mute for system audio so YouTube or music doesn't interfere.
- Model selection. Base, small, medium, or large Whisper variants.
- Audio file import. Drop in existing MP3 / WAV / AIFF / OGG / FLAC files to transcribe.
- Transcription history. Search and export past transcriptions.
- Configurable global shortcut, launch-at-login, lives in the menu bar.
- Download
Wave.dmgfrom the latest release - Open the DMG and drag Wave to Applications
- Launch from Applications
- Grant Microphone and Accessibility permissions when prompted
- The Whisper model (~460MB) downloads automatically on first launch
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Microphone | Records your voice for transcription |
| Accessibility | Pastes transcribed text into the active app via simulated Cmd+V |
- Swift + AppKit (native macOS menu bar app)
- WhisperKit for Core ML-optimized Whisper inference
- KeyboardShortcuts for global hotkey management
- No sandbox (required for the Accessibility API and global hotkeys)
Found a bug or have a feature idea? Open an issue.
Made by santiagoalonso.com