Offline dictation for Mac

Yes, you can dictate on a Mac with no internet at all. Sayburst downloads its speech model once, then turns your voice into clean text entirely on your Mac: hold fn, talk, let go, and the words land in whatever app you're using, on a plane, in a basement office, or on a train that loses signal every ten minutes.

Offline here isn't a reduced mode. Recognition, punctuation, filler removal and the optional AI rewrite all run on the Mac's own chips, so you get the same text with Wi-Fi on or off.

#What works offline, and what doesn't

Most of the confusion around "offline dictation" is about the parts around the speech model. Here's the full list for Sayburst:

The two things that need a connection are obvious ones: getting the model onto your Mac, and any cloud provider you deliberately connect.

#How to set it up for offline use

1. Download while you're online. Install Sayburst, grant Microphone and Accessibility, and let it fetch its default speech model, Parakeet v3. Models are checked against a checksum before they're installed. If you want the AI rewrite on the road, download Sayburst Writer now too (about 2.5 GB).
2. Pick your models for the trip. Parakeet v3 covers English and 24 European languages. If you dictate in Japanese, Hindi or Arabic, download Whisper Large v3 Turbo, which covers 99 languages. Our models guide lists them all.
3. Turn Wi-Fi off and try it. Click into any text field, hold fn, say a sentence, let go. If text appears, you're set. It's a two-minute test that saves you finding out at 35,000 feet.

#What offline dictation looks like in practice

On a flight, writing a quarterly summary in Pages:

"Revenue came in at, um, 4.2 million for the quarter. The the main driver was the enterprise tier, and churn in the starter plan is, uh, still the thing I'd fix first."

What lands in the document:

Revenue came in at 4.2 million for the quarter. The main driver was the enterprise tier, and churn in the starter plan is still the thing I'd fix first.

The numbers come through exactly as you said them. If the AI rewrite ever would change a number you spoke, Sayburst types the cleaned transcript instead.

On a site visit with no signal, you can use the notes shortcut. Say "north stairwell, the handrail on the second floor landing is loose, flag it for Monday" and Sayburst appends it as a timestamped bullet under today's date in a Markdown file you choose, such as your Obsidian vault. It's all on the Mac, so it's there when you're back at your desk.

On a train that drops in and out of coverage, nothing changes. A cloud dictation tool would stall in every tunnel; Sayburst doesn't know or care that the signal went away.

#Apple Dictation offline vs Sayburst

Apple's Dictation can work offline too, and it's free. Apple says on-device dictation needs the language's speech model downloaded, and you can see whether yours runs on the device under System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation (Apple's guide, checked at the end of October 2026).

For a quick sentence now and then, Apple Dictation offline is enough. If you write long stretches by voice and want the result to read like you typed it, Sayburst does more of the tidying for you. And cloud-only tools are out of the running here: Wispr Flow's own data controls page says its transcription always happens in the cloud.

#Offline also means private

Working offline and keeping your voice private are the same design. Sayburst never uploads your audio, connected or not. Recordings are deleted after transcription unless you choose to keep them, and History can be kept forever, trimmed to a day, or turned off. The privacy page spells out the data flow, and local vs cloud dictation explains how to check any app's claims.

One thing offline doesn't change: the app you type into. If you dictate into a cloud document or a chat app, that app syncs your text when the connection returns, the same as if you'd typed it.

#Tips for working offline

• Speed isn't the trade-off. In our benchmark on Apple silicon, Parakeet v3 transcribed a typical dictation in a median of 82 ms on clean read speech. That's on an M4 Max; your Mac and your voice will vary.
• Use a local writer if you want a different model. Ollama or LM Studio running on the Mac can be Sayburst's writer and needs no internet once the model is downloaded.
• Keep History on for long trips. If you dictate into a field that won't accept text, Sayburst keeps it, and ⌃⌥⌘V pastes your last dictation anywhere.
• Transcribe recordings in the air. Drop an audio or video file on the History window and it's transcribed locally, no upload.

#Limits worth knowing

You need to be online once for each model download and for a license check at least once every 60 days. Sayburst runs on Apple silicon Macs (M1 or later) with macOS 14 or later; Intel Macs aren't supported. Writer is slower on 8 GB Macs. For a deeper walkthrough of every offline option on macOS, including how to check Apple's, read how to dictate offline on a Mac, or compare apps in the best offline speech-to-text apps for Mac.

Questions people ask

Can I dictate on a Mac without internet?

Yes. Apple Dictation works offline for languages whose speech model is downloaded, and Sayburst works offline after you download a speech model once. Recognition and cleanup then run entirely on your Mac.

Does Sayburst's AI cleanup work offline?

Yes. The built-in cleanup and the optional Sayburst Writer model both run on your Mac with no account or internet. Only a cloud writing provider, if you choose to connect one, needs a connection.

Will my Sayburst license stop working offline?

No. A purchased license keeps working offline for up to 60 days between license checks, so a long trip or an air-gapped week is fine.

Is offline dictation less accurate?

Not necessarily. In our benchmark on clean read English, Parakeet v3 running on the Mac had a 0.46% word error rate. Results on your own voice, accent and microphone will differ.