What it does
Dictiq turns speech into text anywhere you can type, and runs locally by default. English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi. English is free. On Windows, try everything for seven days, once, then keep the rest for about the price of a pizza.
Press a hotkey and speak
Dictate into any app you can type in. Instant Capture keeps the half second before you press, so an early word is not clipped. On the desktop, a second language sits on Shift plus the hotkey.
On-device by default
No backend server, no user database, no account, no login. Your speech is transcribed and cleaned on your machine.
Languages
English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi. Whatever Dictiq transcribes is inserted correctly into the app you are writing in: right-to-left text stays right to left, and a sentence mixing Urdu and English keeps its direction on both halves. English is free; the unlock adds the rest. In English dictation only, say "comma", "full stop" or "period", "question mark", "exclamation mark", "colon", "semicolon", "new line" or "new paragraph" and the punctuation or break is typed; say "nine fifteen" and it types 9:15. Both are switches in Settings, under Cleanup.
No subscription, no telemetry
No account, no login, and no telemetry, ever.
A level meter while you speak
A small capsule above the taskbar shows the sound level and the language while you speak. Windows only.
Your words, and your history
A custom word list teaches it names and terms it would otherwise get wrong. Recent dictations are kept on your machine and can be deleted all at once.
Questions
Which languages can I dictate in?
English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi. English is free and the one-time unlock adds the other five. Whatever Dictiq transcribes is inserted correctly into the app you are writing in: right-to-left text stays right to left, and a sentence mixing Urdu and English keeps its direction on both halves.
How do I start dictating?
Press the hotkey and speak. Dictiq types the text into whatever you are writing in, so there is no separate window to paste out of.
Does it work offline?
Dictiq works offline once the models you chose are downloaded. Downloading a model is the one thing that needs a connection, and you choose which ones.
What is free, and what does the unlock add?
English dictation is free and stays free. The unlock is a one-time payment, not a subscription, and it adds the other five languages.
Which Windows versions does it run on?
Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit.
Is there a Mac version?
Yes, a free download on this page. It needs macOS 13 or later on an Apple silicon Mac (M1 or newer). English is free; the one-time unlock for the other five languages is bought on Gumroad.
Is there an account, or any telemetry?
No account, no login, and no telemetry, ever. There is no backend server and no user database, so there is nothing to sign in to.
Privacy
What it collects: Nothing. There is no backend server, no user database, no account and no login. What leaves your machine: Nothing you dictate, unless you switch on your own endpoint. That is off by default and part of the one-time unlock: you supply the address and the key, and Dictiq then sends your text there and nowhere else, and keeps no copy of it. The only other network use is downloading the language models you choose, Microsoft Store licence validation on Windows, and on the Mac, once, when you enter a licence key, to check that key with the store you bought it from. On Windows, the settings window is drawn with the Edge WebView2 component built into Windows. That component talks to services of its own, including diagnostics it sends Microsoft under your Windows Diagnostics & feedback setting, and it cannot be told not to. It is Windows', not ours: it never sees your dictation, and nothing from it reaches us.
What it costs
Free in English. The rest is a one-time unlock.
USD 10 one time. No subscription.
Also from the studio
Questions or problems: support@hardboundstudio.com. A person reads every message.