FrigadeHQ/yap
★ 458 stars
Covered in week 2026-W37 · the 2026-09 report
Free, open source voice dictation for macOS. On-device transcription with Apple's Speech framework. No cloud, no API keys, no account.
What yap is
Yap lives in your menu bar and waits for a shortcut. Trigger it and a small window appears near the bottom of the screen with a live waveform and a running preview of what you have said so far. Press the shortcut again and the text gets pasted into the app you were already working in. Every transcript is saved locally, so you can go back and copy something again later.
From the repository README · read it on GitHub →
Transcript
Most voice dictation tools make you download a heavy model first. Yap is free, open source dictation that transcribes on-device with Apple's Speech framework. Press a shortcut, talk, press again, and your words land in whatever field you were using, previewed live. It needs macOS 26 on Apple Silicon, and every transcript stays saved so you can copy it again later.