vokaluYour voice.
Right where you work.
Hold Control + Option. Say what you mean. Release.
Clean text lands in the message, document or prompt you already have open.
macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel · About 18 MB
A small app with room for big thoughts.
Vokalu lives in your menu bar, with a dictation pill when you speak. Dictation, selected-text rewriting, snippets, Private mode, meeting notes and calendars fit into the same app. Start with 75¢ welcome credit plus 25¢ in your first week. The weekly free allowance ends when you first purchase credit. See pricing and free-plan details.
Make it at home.
Open the downloaded disk image, drag Vokalu to Applications, then launch it from Applications. The app is signed and notarized by Apple.
Allow your microphone and shortcut.
Sign in and follow the Microphone and Accessibility steps. Choose your microphone and check your shortcut in Settings.
Speak into your first message.
Click into a text field. Hold Control + Option, speak, and release. Use the menu bar icon to reopen Vokalu when its window is closed.
Light on the Mac we tested.
On an 8 GB M3 MacBook Air, Vokalu 0.2.19 averaged 110 MB of background memory versus 999 MB for Wispr Flow 1.6.1034 in our five-minute run. Our resource report documents the full setup and results.
Read the Mac and Windows measurements, methods and test conditions →
Work offline when you choose.
Download a speech model in Settings to use Private mode. Plain on-device dictation is free and works without the internet. Optional AI formatting sends text for processing and requires a connection. Read the privacy details.
Questions worth asking
Does Vokalu run on Apple silicon and Intel Macs?
Yes. The universal Mac app supports both Apple silicon and Intel on macOS 13 or later. The download is about 18 MB. It is signed with our Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.
What is the Mac dictation shortcut?
Hold Control + Option, speak, then release to insert text at your cursor. Add Space for hands-free dictation. Select text and hold Control + Option + Command to rewrite it. You can change shortcuts in Settings.
Why does Vokalu need Accessibility permission?
Accessibility lets the shortcut work across apps and lets Vokalu insert your words into the focused text field. Microphone permission lets it hear you. Allow both during setup. If Accessibility is disabled, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and turn on Vokalu.
Which features differ from Windows?
Voice form filling, automatic learning from your edits, and muting other audio during dictation are Windows-only for now. On Mac you can still add vocabulary and snippets yourself. Automatic call detection requires macOS 14 or later.