Voice-to-text dictation for macOS
Talk to your Mac. It types.
Right ⌘ to start, right ⌘ again to stop. Your words land at the cursor, in whatever app you're already in. Free forever, no account, no subscription, no server in the middle.
Voice It is a macOS app — open this page on your Mac to install it.
What is Voice It?
Voice It is a free dictation app for macOS that lives in your menubar. You press a shortcut key, speak, press again, and your words are transcribed by Mistral AI and pasted straight into whatever app your cursor is in — no window, no dock icon, no copy-paste.
- 1 Press the right Command key. A toast confirms it's listening.
- 2 Say what you have to say. Press Escape to throw it away instead.
- 3 Press the key again — the text is already pasted at your cursor.
What does it look like while you speak?
A subtle toast notification appears when recording. Press the key again to transcribe, or Escape to cancel.
Voice It stays out of your way until you need it. No intrusive windows, no distractions — just a small notification to confirm it's listening.
How does it work?
One key, both directions
Right ⌘ starts recording. Right ⌘ stops it and the text appears. Escape throws the recording away. Rebind it to whatever key you like.
Silent & invisible
Lives in your menubar. No dock icon, no windows. Just a tiny icon that changes when recording.
It types where you were already typing
No window pops up, no clipboard to babysit. The text is inserted at your cursor — Slack, Xcode, Gmail, an AI prompt, a Finder rename field.
Works everywhere
The hotkey is global. If a text field accepts a keyboard, it accepts your voice.
Nothing about you is stored
Your audio goes to Mistral in Europe, comes back as text, and is not kept. No account, no telemetry, no analytics, no server of mine in the middle — there is no server of mine.
It updates itself
Signed and notarized by Apple, then updated through Sparkle. New versions arrive on their own, cryptographically checked.
How much does it cost?
No subscription, no trial, no premium tier. Voice It is free, and it always will be.
Yes, there's an API key. It takes two minutes and costs cents.
Voice It has no server, no account and no billing of its own — which is exactly why it needs your Mistral key to reach the transcription model. That's the whole trade: two minutes of setup, and nobody sits between your microphone and the model.
Mistral bills the model Voice It uses at €0.0026 per minute of audio (their published rate — check mistral.ai/pricing for the current one). You pay Mistral directly, at cost, with no markup from me. The meter only runs while you're actually talking.
- A full hour of speech
- €0.16
- 10 minutes a day, every day
- €0.78/month
- To spend a single euro
- 6h of talking
Your key is stored on your Mac and sent to exactly one place: api.mistral.ai.
How do you set up Voice It?
Two permissions, one key, done.
- 1 Download the DMG and drag Voice It to your Applications folder.
- 2 Grant Microphone (so it can hear you) and Accessibility (so the hotkey works everywhere and the paste can happen). The setup screen walks you through both.
- 3 Paste your Mistral API key — create one on console.mistral.ai. There is no step 4.
Then Voice It disappears into the menubar and you never open a window again. No account, no onboarding tour, no email. Nothing to cancel later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which languages are supported?
Voice It supports transcription in many languages. The AI automatically detects the language you're speaking.
Can I customize the hotkey?
Yes! You can set any key or key combination as your shortcut in the app's configuration screen. The default is the right Command key.
Is Voice It really free?
Yes. No subscription, no trial, no paid tier, no locked features. The only money involved is what you pay Mistral for transcription — their published rate is €0.0026 per minute of audio, billed directly to your own account with no markup from me.
Is it safe to install an app from outside the App Store?
Voice It is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it like any other app — no right-click gymnastics, no "unidentified developer" warning. Updates are delivered by Sparkle and cryptographically signed too.
Is it listening all the time?
No. The microphone is opened when you press the shortcut and closed when you press it again. The rest of the time it's a menubar icon doing nothing.
What happens to my audio?
It goes straight from your Mac to Mistral in Europe for transcription, under your own Mistral account, and it isn't stored afterwards. There is no server of mine in the path. Press Escape while recording and the audio is discarded before it's ever sent.
Does it work offline?
No, Voice It requires an internet connection to process your audio through Mistral AI's servers. If you need offline dictation, an app running a local model is a better fit.
Why is it free? What's the catch?
I built it because I dictate all day and didn't want a subscription for a hotkey. You bring your own API key, so it costs me nothing to give away. There's no upsell coming and no pro tier waiting behind a future update.
Download Voice It
Signed and notarized by Apple — it opens like any normal app, no right-click gymnastics, no "unidentified developer" scare screen. macOS 15 or later, 11 MB. Updates arrive by themselves via Sparkle.