Hold a key, talk, let go. Polished text lands at your cursor in any app, and the recognition runs on your Mac, with no connection and no account.
7-day free trialNo card neededmacOS 14.0+Apple Silicon and Intel
Unspoken lives in the menu bar and in your fingertips. There is nothing to switch to.
Pick any modifier or custom shortcut. A small recorder appears at the top of the screen. Tap to latch it hands-free if you prefer.
Talk the way you think. Say “new paragraph” or “scratch that” and it listens. Filler and false starts do not survive.
Release the key. The text is inserted where you were typing: Mail, Slack, Notion, Xcode, a browser field. Your clipboard is restored.
Most dictation tools send your audio to someone else’s server. Unspoken doesn’t need to. The model is on your Mac, so there is nothing to trust.
Honest footnote: the app checks for updates, and cloud engines or AI cleanup models exist as optional features. They are off until you add your own provider key and choose them, and they are labeled as cloud in the app.
Pick the engine that fits how you talk. Everything below runs locally on your Mac.
NVIDIA’s Parakeet, tuned for the Apple Neural Engine. Built for real-time dictation: the text arrives almost as you release the key.
The Whisper family from tiny to large-v3-turbo. Pick a smaller model for speed, or the biggest for accents and rare languages.
The speech engine built into macOS. No model download, so you can dictate a minute after installing. A good first run.
More engines ship in the model list, including Qwen3-ASR and streaming models. Download only the ones you want.
Power Mode switches model, language and cleanup the moment you change apps or websites. Voice commands handle the rest.
email stylechat styleliteralper URLSpoken commands are applied locally, before the text is inserted.
new paragraphStarts a new paragraph.
scratch thatDrops your last phrase when you change your mind.
comma”, “question markPunctuation by voice when you want exact control.
make it more professionalRewrite the dictation in a different tone before it lands.
A straight comparison with the tools people usually consider.
| Unspoken | Superwhisper | Wispr Flow | MacWhisper | Apple Dictation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where audio is processed | On your Mac | Local, or cloud models by choice | In the cloud | On your Mac | On device |
| Works offline | Yes | With local models | No | Yes | Yes |
| Price | $8/mo, $80/yr or $190 once | $8.49/mo, $84.99/yr or $249.99 once | $15/mo, about $12/mo billed yearly | Free tier; Pro about €64 once | Free |
| Per-app modes | Yes | Yes | Per-app tone | No | No |
| Spoken commands | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | Basic |
| Platforms | Mac only | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android | Mac | Apple devices |
Competitor details from public sources, October 2026. Plans change, so check each vendor for current terms.
Unspoken vs Wispr Flow · Unspoken vs Superwhisper · Unspoken vs Apple Dictation · Dragon alternative for Mac
Download and use it free for 7 days, no card. Then choose what suits you. Subscriptions can be cancelled any time.
Each license covers one Mac and can be moved to a new one from your account.
Yes. Speech recognition runs on your Mac, so you can dictate in airplane mode. You only need a connection to download the app, to download extra models, and for update checks.
No, unless you opt in to a cloud engine or AI cleanup model by adding your own provider key and selecting it. Those options are labeled in the app. Out of the box, nothing is uploaded.
More than 100 with the Whisper engines, including English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Parakeet v3 covers 25 European languages and is the fastest.
Because recognition happens on your device, there is no voice data for us to process. Unspoken is built by Akilaris UG in Bremen, Germany, and the privacy policy lists what the website collects.
You can use Unspoken free for 7 days without a credit card. If you subscribe through checkout, you can cancel any time.
Each license covers one device. You can move it to a new Mac from your account.