Free dictation for Mac and Windows

Talk.
It types.

Hold a key, talk, and the words land wherever your cursor is. Email, Slack, ChatGPT, anything. Your voice never leaves your laptop.

Download for Mac Free Download for Windows Free

Mac button is for Apple Silicon. Not sure which Mac you have? Open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. If the Chip line says Apple M, use the Mac button. If the Processor line says Intel, get the Intel version.

Free, no account
Works offline
Runs on everyday laptops

How it works

Three steps. The first one is the whole trick.

Step 1

Hold your shortcut

Option Space Windows: Ctrl + Space

Click into any text box, anywhere on your computer, and hold the keys. Or tap once to keep it listening.

Step 2

Talk like normal

No robot voice. Say "um," change your mind, keep going.

Step 3

Let go

A second later, the words are typed out for you.

Proof

Numbers, live from GitHub.

Say Less is brand new, so there are no reviews yet. Here is what can be checked instead.

Open source, MIT Read every line in the public repo

Signed and notarized by Apple The Mac build passes Gatekeeper

Privacy

Your voice never leaves the room.

Most dictation apps send your audio to their servers to turn it into text. Say Less does that work on your own laptop, so there's nothing to send.

Typical cloud dictation

Your mic→Their servers→Text

Needs internet. Needs an account. Your recordings sit on someone else's computer.

Say Less

Your mic→Your laptop→Text

Works on a plane. No sign-up. Nothing to leak, because nothing leaves.

What's inside

Small app. Does the job.

Voice snippets

Save text you type all the time and trigger it with a short phrase.

Say "my calendar link" and your full booking link gets typed.

Cleaner writing

Filler words get cut, and your own vocabulary (names, brands, slang) gets spelled right.

"um so basically we should uh ship it" becomes "We should ship it."

Works in every app

If you can type there, you can talk there.

Light on your laptop

The recommended speech models are small, about a 600 MB download, so they fit on normal laptops.

Bring your old words

Coming from another dictation app? Import your saved word list.

Say less, stress less

It remembers what you keep saying.

Everything you dictate stays on your computer. Say Less reads it back to you: the problems you keep running into and the ideas you keep having, so you can actually do something about them.

Fix this first

Your most repeated problem, with what you said and when.

"You've brought up export audio dropping 27 times this month."

Ideas you forgot you had

Every "what if we..." you said out loud, in one list with the date you said it.

Read it to me

Hear your daily digest out loud, with voices on your computer.

Notes that write themselves

Turn on nightly notes and your day lands in Obsidian-style Markdown files.

Ask Claude

Connect Claude or any AI tool to search your own history, locally.

Make it yours

A little face that talks when you do.

Swap the audio bars for a squiggle that moves with your voice, or build an avatar that mouths along while you talk. Stick figure, person, or animal. Pick the colors. Add a hat.

The difference

Same job. None of the bill.

	Say Less	Typical paid dictation
Price	Free	Monthly subscription
Works without internet	Yes	Usually no
Account required	No	Yes
Audio leaves your computer	Never	Yes
Open source	Yes	No

FAQ

Questions people ask.

Is it actually free?

Yes. No trial, no credit card, no account. It runs on your computer, so there's no server bill to pass on to you.

Will it run on my laptop?

It is built for everyday laptops, including ones with 8GB of RAM. The recommended speech models are small (about 600 MB) and run on the processor you already have.

Does it need internet?

Only once, to download the speech model from the open-source Handy project's model server the first time you open it. After that it works fully offline.

Why does my Mac ask for permissions?

Two of them. Microphone, so it can hear you. Accessibility, so it can type into other apps for you. It can't do its job without both.

Mac or Windows?

Both: Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, plus Windows 10 and 11. The Mac button is for Apple Silicon. Not sure which Mac you have? Open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. If the Chip line says Apple M, use the Mac button. If the Processor line says Intel, get the Intel version. Windows on ARM installers are on the releases page.

Can it clean up my writing with AI?

Optional. If you have your own AI key, you can turn on extra cleanup. That step sends the text (never the audio) to the AI provider you choose. It's off unless you turn it on.

Where did it come from?

Say Less is built on Handy, an open-source dictation project. We added our own features and design on top, and the code is open under the MIT license.

Stop typing everything.

Download Say Less, hold a key, and talk.

On macOS 15 or newer, Say Less can also record your screen with your face and sound.

Download for Mac Free Download for Windows Free