Offline Speech to Text

Whisper Notes is an offline speech to text app for iPhone and Mac. The speech model runs on your device, so it works without an internet connection and your audio is never uploaded. Record from the Lock Screen, import an audio file, or transcribe a meeting; the text appears on the same device.

What works offline?

Everything after the first model download. Recording, transcription, speaker labels, search and export all run on the device, so airplane mode works. We don't collect or upload any user information.

On iPhone, one tap on the Lock Screen widget opens the app and starts recording, and a Live Activity shows the recording on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. You can also import audio files, or share a recording from Voice Memos into Whisper Notes.

On Mac, you can record, import audio and video files, and record Zoom, Teams or Google Meet calls from system audio. In the Mac app downloaded from our website, you can also hold Fn to type with your voice in any app.

Add names, product terms and jargon as custom vocabulary in Settings, and the model spells them the way you do. To move text out, copy it, share it, or select several transcripts and export them together.

Which speech model runs where?

Whisper Notes ships three speech engines. You choose one in Settings; an engine you add downloads once.

•Parakeet V3 is the default: the fastest engine for English and 24 other European languages. It is built into the iPhone app (about 465 MB). On English it scores 6.32% WER on the Open ASR Leaderboard and runs about 60× realtime on an M5 MacBook Air.
•Whisper covers 100+ languages. The Mac runs Whisper Large V3 Turbo (about 1.6 GB); the iPhone runs Whisper Small, which has the same language list.
•SenseVoice is built for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Cantonese. On an M4 Pro Mac it transcribed a 27-minute Chinese podcast in 13.83 seconds (118×); on English it runs about 52× realtime.

On an M4 Pro, Parakeet V3 transcribes 35 minutes of audio in about 18 seconds. On iPhone, the App Store listing reports about 18 seconds for five minutes of audio with Parakeet on an iPhone 15. The full list of languages each engine supports is on one page.

What does it cost?

On iPhone, Whisper Notes is $7.99 once. On Mac, the first 5,000 words every week are free, then it is $14 once. Neither has a subscription or an account, and every engine is included.

What are the limits?

•Apple devices only. iPhone 12 or later with iOS 18, or an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14. There is no Android, Windows or Intel Mac version.
•Speed depends on the device. An hour-long recording takes minutes on an iPhone, not seconds, and older iPhones are slower. If you need a long file back instantly, a cloud service is still faster.
•Keep the iPhone app open. iOS pauses transcription when you switch to another app.
•No sync. Recordings stay on the device where you made them. Use export or AirDrop to move them.

Offline Speech to Text: FAQ

Does speech to text work without internet?

Yes. The speech models download to your device once — Parakeet V3 (465MB) by default, with Whisper (Large V3 Turbo, ~1.6 GB, on Mac; Small on iPhone) and SenseVoice also available. After that first download, recording and transcription run entirely on-device: airplane mode works, and zero data is used.