Offline dictation on a Mac: how to dictate privately

What does “private” dictation actually mean?

Dictation is private when your voice is turned into text on your own Mac and the audio is never uploaded, stored or used to train anything. Three questions decide it: where the speech recognition runs, whether the recording is kept, and whether the text is sent anywhere afterwards.

Many dictation tools send your audio to a server because big speech models used to need data-center hardware. Apple silicon changed that. The Neural Engine in every M-series Mac can run a modern speech model fast enough to keep up with you, with no connection at all.

Can Apple Dictation work offline?

Often, yes. Apple says you can check Keyboard settings to see whether your voice input for general text dictation is processed on your device and not sent to Apple's servers. On-device dictation depends on your Mac and language, and Apple lists which languages support it on its macOS feature availability page.

Two caveats from Apple's own documentation. Dictating into a search box can still go to Apple's servers. And when dictation isn't processed on-device, what you say is sent to Apple and processed there, though Apple says it isn't stored unless you opt in to Improve Siri and Dictation.

To check your setup:

1. Open System Settings and choose Keyboard.
2. Find the Dictation section and read the note under it about where your voice input is processed.
3. If you don't want recordings shared with Apple, make sure you haven't opted in to Improve Siri and Dictation.

How do you dictate fully offline with SayWrite?

SayWrite runs NVIDIA's Parakeet TDT 0.6B v2 speech model on the Apple Neural Engine, so recognition never leaves your Mac. Setup takes a few minutes:

1. Download SayWrite and move it to your Applications folder. It needs Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later.
2. Allow Microphone and Accessibility access when asked. Accessibility lets SayWrite type into other apps.
3. Click Download Model. The speech model is about 465 MB and comes from Hugging Face. With the model ready on disk, dictation works offline; missing or failed model files may need downloading again.
4. Set System Settings › Keyboard › “Press 🌐 key to” to Do Nothing, so the Fn key only starts SayWrite.
5. Click into any text field, hold Fn, speak, and let go. The text appears at your cursor.

While you speak, audio goes to a temporary file that is deleted as soon as the text is ready, or when you cancel. SayWrite doesn't have passwords, analytics or telemetry. For measured speech-processing speed and its limits, see our archived test conditions.

How can you check that nothing leaves your Mac?

The simplest test works for any app: disconnect from every network (turn off Wi-Fi, unplug any network cable, and disconnect a VPN or phone hotspot), then dictate a sentence. If the text still appears, the speech recognition is running on your Mac. If the app shows an error or waits, it depends on a server. A passing test proves the app can work offline, not that it never uploads when it's online; for that, watch it with a network monitor such as LuLu or Little Snitch while you dictate.

It's also worth reading an app's privacy policy for three things: whether audio is uploaded, whether transcripts are stored on a server, and whether your data is used to train models. SayWrite's privacy policy lists every network connection the app makes.

What about AI rewriting and cleanup?

Rewriting is where privacy often slips. Many tools send your text to a cloud AI model to fix grammar or change the tone, even when the speech recognition itself was local.

SayWrite's AI Polish runs on your Mac too. It uses Apple Intelligence's on-device model (macOS 26 or later) or your own Ollama or LM Studio server, which SayWrite only ever contacts at 127.0.0.1, the address of your own Mac. Any other address is refused, even if you type it in. AI features are off until you turn them on.

Private dictation options compared

Tips for private dictation

• Turn off anything that shares audio recordings to improve a service unless you want to take part.
• Keep History short if you share your Mac. SayWrite lets you keep it for 7 days or clear it at any time.
• Add names and jargon to a personal dictionary so you fix fewer words by hand.
• Read our roundup of offline dictation apps if you want to compare options.