The Problem
Voice transcription tools turn speech into text — then stop. You still copy-paste into apps, switch windows, route output manually.
The open-source world has two mature, disconnected layers:
- Voice/STT: OpenWhispr, Whispering, VoiceInk
- Workflow automation: n8n, Activepieces, Huginn
Nobody built the bridge. WhisperWoof is that bridge.
How It Works
Hands-free: double-tap Fn to lock recording on, then tap once to stop and paste.
Live typing (Settings → Transcription → How dictation works): watch the words appear while you speak, like a phone keyboard's voice input, on one line next to Mando that slides left as you keep talking. Settled text is solid ink, the tail that may still change sits in frosted glass; on release it's re-checked by your transcription model, polished, and pasted.
Voice ──▶ Local speech-to-text (Whisper / Parakeet / Distil-Whisper)
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▼
Memory swaps (mishearings you approved, e.g. "super base" → Supabase)
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Local cleanup (bundled llama-server)
Drops filler, fixes grammar and punctuation, keeps your language
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The key you pressed decides where it goes
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├──▶ Fn → Paste at your cursor
├──▶ Fn + T → Copy to the clipboard
├──▶ Fn + N → Save as a Markdown note
├──▶ Fn + P → File the note under a project (Inbox by default)
└──▶ Every dictation also lands in searchable history
Features
Dictation
- Live typing (new in 1.18, a one-line ticker since 2.1): text streams in as you talk, IME-style, from a local Chinese + English streaming model (X-ASR, 134 MB). On release the whole recording is re-checked by your transcription model (or the live text is pasted as is, your choice), then cleaned up. On by default since 2.7 (its model downloads in the background); switch to "After you finish" in Settings → Transcription.
- Local speech-to-text: Whisper large-v3 turbo by default (1.6 GB, many languages including Chinese), or NVIDIA Parakeet for fast English and European dictation, or Distil-Whisper for English, or SenseVoice for mixed Chinese and English. Nothing leaves your Mac.
- Smart Cleanup: a small bundled model (Qwen3.5 2B, 1.3 GB, run by llama-server) removes filler, fixes grammar, assembles spoken emails, and keeps your voice. Spoken enumerations ("第一… 第二…") become numbered lists; silent captures are dropped instead of guessed at. One click in onboarding sets it up; the prompt is yours to edit in Prompt Studio.
- Memory: learns names and jargon from the fixes you already make. Fix the same mishearing twice and it offers to fix it for you from then on, with every engine. It only swaps what you approve.
- Hotkey = destination: each Fn combination has one place it sends your words. No commands to remember, no guessing.
Notes, clipboard & history
- Notes & projects: Fn+N saves a dated Markdown note to
~/Documents/WhisperWoof Notes (change the folder in Settings; Obsidian reads it as is). Fn+P files it under a project, Inbox by default. A note links back to its recording.
- Clipboard (new in 2.2): everything you copy, text on one side and images on the other. Click to copy again (images paste as images), save any item to Notes, pin what matters, and choose how long history is kept and how much space images may use. What password managers copy is never saved.
- Words in images (new in 2.4): opt-in. Search finds a screenshot by the words in it, Chinese and English included. macOS's own text recognition reads your images on your Mac, in the background and at low priority (older images only while plugged in); nothing is uploaded. Turning it off deletes the words.
- Voice history + audio playback: tap any entry to replay the original recording. Audio Retention keeps recordings for 7 to 90 days, or stops saving them.
- Full-text search: SQLite FTS5 across all your voice and clipboard entries.
Privacy & security
- Local-first: dictation, cleanup, history and search run on your Mac with bundled models (whisper.cpp, sherpa-onnx, llama.cpp). No account, no upload. Cloud models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) work if you bring your own key and are off until you choose one.
- Encryption (new in 2.3): opt-in. History, notes, recordings, clipboard images and Memory are encrypted on your Mac and unlock with Touch ID (the key lives in the Secure Enclave) or your password. A 12-word recovery phrase opens them on any Mac. No back door: lose both and the data is gone. It locks when your Mac locks or sleeps, and dictation keeps working while it's locked. Notes can stay plain Markdown if you want them in Obsidian or iCloud. (Design.)
- Only its own files (2.3.1): WhisperWoof reads and deletes files only inside its own folders, never an imported original, and settings import/export use their own file dialogs.
- Graceful degradation: no cleanup model? You still get a clean raw transcript. Selected model missing? It falls back to the best one on disk.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
