SuperWhisper

Most voice dictation tools send your audio to a server, process it, and return text. SuperWhisper skips the round trip entirely. It runs OpenAI's Whisper models natively on your Mac's Apple Silicon, which means transcription happens in real time with zero internet dependency.

This matters more than it sounds. When dictation is instant and private, you stop filtering yourself. You talk through ideas instead of typing around them. The latency difference between local and cloud processing — even just 200ms — changes whether voice input feels like a tool or an interruption.

SuperWhisper sits in your menu bar and activates via a customizable keyboard shortcut. Hold the key, speak, release — your text appears wherever your cursor is. It works across every app: email, Slack, code editors, notes, browser fields.

The base layer is Whisper transcription — fast, accurate, multilingual (100+ languages). But SuperWhisper adds an AI enhancement layer on top. You can route your transcription through GPT, Claude, or Llama to clean up grammar, reformat for context, or apply custom prompts. The AI-enhanced mode reads your screen context to produce smarter output — dictate a commit message while looking at a diff, or narrate meeting notes while a doc is open.

The headline feature is voice-to-text. The power feature is Custom Modes. You define how SuperWhisper processes your speech — formatting rules, structure preferences, specialized prompts for different tasks. A mode for email might produce polished paragraphs. A mode for code comments might produce terse one-liners. A mode for journaling might leave everything raw.

This is where SuperWhisper separates from basic dictation. It is not just converting speech to text — it is converting speech to the right kind of text for the moment.

- Offline transcription via on-device Whisper models — works on flights, in cafés, without Wi-Fi - AI enhancement through GPT, Claude, or Llama for context-aware formatting - Screen-aware mode that adapts output based on your active application - Custom Modes for task-specific voice workflows (email, code, notes, journaling) - Universal input — works in any text field across macOS and iOS - 100+ languages with custom vocabulary for specialized terminology - Privacy-first architecture — audio never leaves your device for base transcription

Free tier available (15 minutes of Pro recording, then basic features forever). Pro at $8.49/month or $84.99/year. Lifetime license at $249.99. Student discount available. One license covers both Mac and iOS.

SuperWhisper solves a problem most people do not realize they have: the gap between how fast you think and how fast you type. Local processing removes the friction that makes cloud dictation feel like a compromise. Custom Modes make it a genuine productivity multiplier rather than a novelty. If you spend your day writing — emails, docs, code comments, notes — this is the tool that turns dead time into output.