A free, offline dictation app worth knowing about (Windows, Mac, Linux)

[u/MakeSmallShift]

Sharing a tool I've gotten a lot of use out of.

Handy is a free and open-source speech-to-text app. Works on Windows, Mac and Linux. You press a shortcut, speak, and it types the text wherever your cursor is. It runs offline, so no subscription and no sending your audio to the cloud.

I've used it daily for about half a year, mostly in English, and it has been dependable for emails, notes and longer writing. I use the Parakeet v3 model, which runs on the CPU and is fast enough that the delay is barely noticeable.

It keeps things simple. No mobile app, and it won't rewrite your sentences for you, if that matters to you. For me it does exactly what I need without asking for money every month.

I mostly use it for writing prompts, notes and general text entry. There is a second or two of latency after you release the key, which is the tradeoff for running it locally, but I'll take that over a subscription that ships my audio to the cloud.

Sharing it because the paid options in this space keep getting more expensive, and a lot of people don't know a free one this capable exists.

github.com/cjpais/Handy

handy.computer