Questions people ask about Lesskeys

Yes. All speech-to-text runs on your Mac using Apple Silicon's GPU. Nothing is uploaded, no account is required, and it works fully offline — even in airplane mode. More on the homepage.

Yes. On-device apps and local command-line tools transcribe on your Mac's GPU, so the audio is never uploaded to a server. Lesskeys does this for dictation, calls, meetings, and files. More on Transcribe without uploading.

Check that transcription and any AI formatting run fully on-device, that no account is required, and that it works in airplane mode. If it keeps working with the internet off, nothing is being uploaded. More on Transcribe without uploading.

No. Audio is processed entirely on your Mac and is not sent to a server. There is no account to create and no transcription quota being counted somewhere else. More on Voice to text on a Mac.

For most audio, yes — local models like Whisper Large are the same class of model cloud services use. Lesskeys offers several models so you can trade speed for accuracy. More on Transcribe without uploading.

No. Lesskeys is free to download, and one in-app purchase of $49.99 unlocks it permanently. You pay once and it's yours. More on the homepage.

Free to download from the Mac App Store, and $49.99 once to unlock Pro. Not per month, not per minute, not per seat. It needs macOS 13.0 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac. More on Compare.

There is no limit on how long a file can be and no per-minute pricing — it runs on your own machine, so there is no server capacity to ration. The free download does cap the count: five audio and five video transcriptions in total, plus five minutes of dictation a day. Recording is never metered, and re-transcribing something you have already done is free. The one-time $49.99 Pro unlock removes the caps. More on Audio to text.

Three: Lesskeys (free to download, $49.99 once to unlock Pro), MacWhisper (€64 once for Pro, with a free edition), and Superwhisper's $249.99 lifetime licence alongside its subscription. Every other tool on this page charges a subscription or per use, though several have a plan at no cost. More on Compare.

Install Lesskeys, then press ⌥. anywhere in macOS and start talking. Your words are transcribed on your Mac and copied to the clipboard, so one ⌘V puts them wherever you already are — no window to switch to and no menu to open. You can change the shortcut to whatever you prefer. More on the homepage.

For a short message, honestly no — the dictation built into macOS is free and already on your Mac. Lesskeys is for what it does not do: transcribing recorded calls, meetings, interviews and video, labelling who said what, and letting you choose which of 99 languages and which Whisper model runs on your machine. See the full difference. More on the homepage.

In Lesskeys the default global hotkey is Option and the period key (⌥.). Press it anywhere in macOS to start recording and press it again to stop; the transcribed text is copied to your clipboard. The shortcut can be changed in Settings. macOS also has its own built-in dictation shortcut, which is separate and configured in System Settings. More on Voice to text on a Mac.

In Lesskeys, yes. The speech model runs on your Mac's GPU, so dictation and transcription both work offline — in airplane mode, on a restricted network, or with the Wi-Fi switched off. Many other voice-to-text tools require a connection because the recognition happens on their servers. More on Voice to text on a Mac.

Yes. Lesskeys records the meeting's system audio and mic locally and transcribes it on-device, so nothing is uploaded and there's no transcription bot in the call. More on Private meeting transcription.

No. Lesskeys records locally, so no third-party note-taker bot joins the call and no audio is sent to a server. More on Private meeting transcription.

Yes. Lesskeys records system audio directly on your Mac, so it can capture and transcribe meetings from any app — Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Slack — locally, with automatic speaker labels. Nothing is uploaded. See private meeting transcription. More on the homepage.

Automatically detecting who is speaking and when, then labeling each part of a transcript by speaker — Speaker 1, Speaker 2, or named people. More on Speaker diarization.

Lesskeys offers Fast and Precise models plus overlap detection, so you can trade speed for accuracy on tricky multi-speaker audio — all locally. More on Speaker diarization.

Yes. It can build persistent on-device voiceprints, so a recurring speaker can be recognized and named across different recordings. More on Speaker diarization.

Yes. Lesskeys can capture and transcribe screen or window video locally, and includes a transcript-synced player — all on your Mac. More on the homepage.

Common audio and video formats — MP3, M4A, WAV, MP4, MOV and more. If macOS can play it, Lesskeys can usually transcribe it. More on Audio to text.

Lesskeys runs Whisper for you via whisper.cpp on the Apple Silicon GPU — the same models, in six sizes from Tiny to Large V3 Turbo — and wraps them with system-wide dictation, call/video transcription, and automatic speaker diarization — all offline, no setup. More on Running Whisper on a Mac.

Yes. Once the model is downloaded, Whisper transcribes entirely on your Mac with no internet connection, using Apple Silicon's GPU for speed. Your audio never leaves the device. More on Running Whisper on a Mac.

No. The command line (whisper.cpp) is the free, technical route. If you'd rather not set that up, an app like Lesskeys runs Whisper for you and adds dictation, meeting transcription, and speaker labels. More on Running Whisper on a Mac.

99 languages with automatic language detection — all running on-device. More on the homepage.

Lesskeys runs Whisper-class open speech models — the same technology family behind most modern transcription services — with 99-language auto-detect. Accuracy is comparable to cloud converters; the difference is where the work happens. More on Audio to text.

macOS 13.0 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later). Intel Macs are not supported. More on the homepage.

Lesskeys does dictation and transcription in one app, entirely offline: system-wide dictation plus call, interview, and video transcription with fully local speaker diarization — pay once, no subscription. Full comparisons: Superwhisper alternative and MacWhisper alternative. More on the homepage.

Lesskeys and MacWhisper transcribe entirely on the Mac. Superwhisper runs local models with optional cloud modes. Granola transcribes on the device but stores transcripts in its cloud. Everything else on this page sends the audio to a server. More on Compare.