Your voice. Your Mac.
Nothing else.
Push-to-talk speech-to-text that runs 100% locally. Hold a key, speak, release — transcribed text appears at your cursor.
How It Works
Three steps. No setup. No account required.
Hold
Press and hold your hotkey (default: Fn). A recording overlay appears.
Speak
Talk naturally. Audio is captured locally at 16kHz mono — nothing leaves your Mac.
Release
Let go. Aftertone transcribes instantly and text is pasted at your cursor.
Features
Everything you need. Nothing you don't.
Global Hotkey
Configurable push-to-talk hotkey works from any app. Default: Fn key.
Dual Mode
Quick tap toggles recording on/off. Hold for 300ms+ enables push-to-talk.
100% Local
Aftertone runs entirely on your Mac. No cloud, no API keys, no subscriptions.
Live Waveform
Floating overlay shows real-time audio levels so you know it's listening.
State Feedback
Menu bar icon changes color by state — gray, red, yellow, green — so you always know what's happening.
Hallucination Filter
Automatically strips phantom outputs like "[BLANK_AUDIO]" and "Thank you." from transcriptions.
Clipboard Safe
Saves your clipboard before pasting, restores it after. Your copy buffer is never lost.
Secure Input
Automatically detects password fields and secure input — disables itself to stay out of the way.
Crash Recovery
Aftertone's transcription engine is monitored with health checks, auto-restart, and exponential backoff.
Zero Dependencies
Pure Swift, fully native. No Electron, no Python, no Node. Just a macOS app.
DMG Installer
Professional drag-to-install DMG with custom background. No brew, no scripts.
Universal Binary
Runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. One binary, zero Rosetta.
Your words stay on your Mac
No cloud. No telemetry. No data collection. Period.
| Cloud STT | Aftertone | |
|---|---|---|
| Audio processing | Sent to remote servers | Stays on your Mac |
| Transcription | Processed in the cloud | On-device with Aftertone |
| Data storage | Stored on third-party servers | Temp file, deleted after use |
| Internet required | Yes, always | Never |
| Subscription | $10–30/month | Free, forever |
Built for people who value their time
Whether you write code, prose, or emails — Aftertone fits your workflow.
Writers
Dictate drafts, notes, and ideas faster than you can type. Flow without friction.
Developers
Voice-to-text for commit messages, comments, and documentation. Hands stay on the keyboard.
Privacy Advocates
Your audio never touches a server. Zero network requests during transcription.
Professionals
Meeting notes, emails, and messages — dictated and pasted in one motion.
Accessibility
A lightweight, always-available voice input that works in any text field on macOS.
Cloud-Fatigued
No accounts, no API keys, no subscriptions, no rate limits. Just works.
Under the Hood
Native, minimal, and fast.
Platform
macOS 14 Sonoma+
Language
Swift 5.9
Engine
On-device AI
Audio
16kHz mono PCM WAV
Architecture
Universal (arm64 + x86_64)
Dependencies
Zero third-party
UI
SwiftUI + AppKit
Network
localhost only (port 8080)
Ready to speak freely?
Download Aftertone and start dictating — no account needed to try it out.
Download for macOS