QuillKey is push to talk dictation for the Mac. Speech becomes text right where your cursor is, and the whole thing runs on your machine.
No subscription. No account. No audio leaving your Mac.
Push to talk on any key you like, fn by default. Or set a toggle for long dictation, with a cap so a forgotten microphone stops itself.
A small pill floats over whatever you're doing and transcribes as you speak. Release, and it's gone.
The text is inserted exactly where your cursor is. Mail, Slack, your editor, a form in Safari. Anywhere you can type, you can talk.
Transcription is entirely on-device. Apple's speech engine ships with macOS, and Parakeet runs locally on Apple silicon. There is no server, no account, and nothing to log into.
Optional cleanup modes can rewrite a dictation through a local Apple Intelligence model, or, if you choose, through Claude or GPT using your own API key. Cloud is off until you turn it on, per mode, and a local-only app profile blocks it outright.
QuillKey even cleans up after itself: when the clipboard fallback is used, your old clipboard is put back.
Generic dictation mangles names, products and jargon. QuillKey feeds your terms to the engine before it listens, then runs a correction pass on the way out to catch what the engine still missed.
Every dictation is measured against typing the same words at 40 words a minute, so the Stats screen can tell you exactly what talking bought you. All counted on your Mac, shown to nobody but you.
Sample numbers. Yours will be earned.
One key opens a small pad over whatever you're working in. Talk or type, and the note keeps until you delete it. Saved notes live in a drawer beside the page, searchable, and the pad wears its own theme and its own key.
Apple's engine needs no download. Parakeet is faster and sharper on English. Switch in Settings, compare on your own voice.
Spoken commands are handled deterministically, so "scratch that" deletes instead of typing four words about scratching.
Turn a ramble into a tidy email, locally via Apple Intelligence, or through Claude or GPT with your own key. Never blocking: if cleanup fails, your words land as spoken.
Every dictation is kept on-device with what was heard, what was corrected, and how long it took. Search it, copy from it.
A different mode for Mail than for your editor. A local-only profile for the apps where cloud cleanup should never fire.
Pick an accent and the app follows, wave, toggles and all. Try it on this page:
One payment. Not per month, not per year.
The deal, plainly: you buy the tool, updates to version 1 are included, and if a version 2 ever ships it will be a paid upgrade. You keep what you bought either way.
Yes. Every download starts a fourteen day trial with every feature switched on, no card and no account. When it ends, the app asks for a key and leaves your data alone.
Yes. Transcription runs on your Mac with no network at all. The only features that touch the internet are the optional cloud cleanup modes, and those only run when you enable them with your own API key.
Because nothing about dictation costs us money every month. There is no server transcribing your audio, so there is no bill to pass on. Apps that charge yearly for local dictation are charging rent on your own computer.
Mac only for now. QuillKey is built on macOS speech and accessibility frameworks, so a Windows version would be a new app, not a port. We may look at it later.
Apple silicon Macs on macOS 26 or later. The local models are built for the Neural Engine, which is where the speed comes from.
None. There is no account, no analytics, and no telemetry. Your dictation history lives in a local database on your Mac and nowhere else.