Whisperer is a Mac app for dictation and meeting notes. Dictation costs $2.99: hold Fn, talk, release, and paste the text with ⌘V. Pro is a $14.99 one-time purchase that adds meeting notes, calendar recording, speaker names, AI summaries with the AI you already use, and an MCP server for apps like Claude and Cursor. Speech is turned into text on your Mac. There's no account and no subscription.
This guide walks through the whole setup, dictation first, then meetings.
What you need#
- A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or later)
- macOS 26 Tahoe
- About 1 GB of free disk space for the default speech model, and about 3.2 GB more if you want the built-in AI model for meeting notes
Set up dictation#
Get Whisperer from the Mac App Store
Search "Whisperer Voice to Text" or use this App Store link. It's $2.99, one time. You don't create an account.
Allow the microphone
On first launch Whisperer asks for microphone access. Click Allow. That's the only permission dictation needs. Whisperer doesn't ask to control your Mac or watch your keyboard.
Let the default model download
Whisperer downloads Whisperer V3, its default speech model (Whisper Large V3 Turbo, about 547 MB). It handles 97 languages and runs on your Mac's GPU. After the download, dictation works with Wi-Fi off.
Hold Fn, speak, release, paste
Click into any text field, hold Fn, speak normally, and let go. Words stream into a small preview while you talk. When you release, the text is copied and a Copied ⌘V toast appears. Press ⌘V to paste it.
Don't want to use Fn? Pick another shortcut in Settings. You can also switch from hold-to-talk to a toggle (press once to start, once to stop) or a hands-free mode for longer stretches.
Here's the Workspace window, where your dictation history lives:
We need premium feel premium feel and look like really premium like the high level UI UX so basically we need it to be Prefect UI UX high level of CEO and also animations look the guidance below
Validate the build
Analyze the below suggestion and pending changes we made. We fixed a lot of stuff, added a lot of stuff, so I want to verify what is left based on the suggestion report below.
Your first dictation#
Open Notes, hold Fn and say something like this:
“Remind me to send the deck to Priya before Thursday's review”
Remind me to send the deck to Priya before Thursday's review.Whisperer works out the language on its own, so you can switch from English to Spanish between dictations without touching a setting. Fast Polish cleans up punctuation, filler words like "um", and paragraph breaks.
If a name keeps coming out wrong, add it to the personal dictionary. Whisperer also learns words from the corrections you make.
Pick a speech engine (optional)#
The default is fine for most people. If you want to experiment, you can pick another engine in Settings. All run offline:
| Engine | Good for |
|---|---|
| Whisper (default, Whisperer V3) | Best all-round accuracy, 97 languages |
| Parakeet | Fast English and 24 other European languages on the Neural Engine |
| Qwen3 ASR | 31 languages |
| WhisperKit | Whisper models on Core ML |
| Apple Speech | Apple's on-device recognizer in macOS 26. It drives the live preview for every engine |
See which Whisper model to pick for more on the trade-offs.
Add Pro for meeting notes#
Pro is a $14.99 one-time in-app purchase. Open Whisperer's settings and buy it from there. It adds everything on the meetings page: call detection, calendar recording, speakers, AI notes, Ask AI and MCP.
Take a call
Start a Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack huddle, Webex or FaceTime call, or a call in your browser. Whisperer notices when the call app turns on the microphone and shows a card: "Zoom call started — Take notes?"
Confirm the consent reminder once
Before your first recording Whisperer shows a one-time reminder. Recording laws differ by place, and in some you need everyone's permission. Telling people is your job, so read it once and agree.
Record
Whisperer records the call audio and your microphone, so both sides are captured whether you use speakers or headphones. Nothing joins the call. A small bar at the edge of the screen, the Island, shows the recording with pause, stop and open buttons, and a live transcript fills in as people talk.
Read the notes
When the call ends you get a title, an overview, key topics, decisions, action items with owners, open questions and the next meeting. Speakers are numbered in the order they first spoke. You can name them in one click from the calendar invite.
Dictating during a call still works. Hold Fn mid-meeting and the recording pauses while you dictate, then picks up again.
Connect your calendar#
Open the Calendar page in Workspace and sign in with Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook. Access is read-only and the sign-in tokens stay in your Mac's Keychain.
A minute before a meeting starts, a card offers Join & Record, Record or Dismiss. Recordings are named after the invite, and the participant list is saved with them so naming speakers is quick. More on this in recording meetings from your calendar.
Choose the AI that writes your notes#
Open the LLM page in Workspace. It's one list:
- On this Mac. The built-in Qwen3.5 4B model (about 3.2 GB download). Offline, free, and the default. If any other choice is unavailable, this one takes over.
- Your AI subscriptions. Claude (Pro or Max, through Claude Code), ChatGPT (Plus or Pro), Codex (through your ChatGPT plan) or Gemini (Google AI Pro or Ultra). Notes count against the plan you already pay for.
- API keys. OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini keys, stored in Keychain.
The AI you pick writes meeting notes, answers Ask AI questions and polishes transcripts. Audio never leaves your Mac. If you pick a cloud AI, only the text transcript goes to it, and you can keep any single meeting local. The your AI page has the details.
Let Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT read your meetings (optional)#
Whisperer has a built-in MCP server, off by default. Open MCP in Workspace, choose your app (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Antigravity or ChatGPT) and copy the setup it gives you. Whisperer opens the right config file in Finder so you can paste it in. Then ask your app something like "What did we decide in my last meeting?"
The server only accepts connections from apps on your Mac unless you turn on LAN access. ChatGPT connects from the cloud, so it needs a public https tunnel URL. See the MCP page and the guide to using Claude with your meeting notes.
Where your data lives#
Everything stays under ~/Library/Application Support/Whisperer/ on your Mac. Meeting audio is kept in a compact format, and you choose how long: never, 7, 30, 90 or 365 days. Whisperer has no analytics or tracking, and its App Store listing says "Data Not Collected".
Where to go next#
- Dictation tips for Slack, Gmail and Notion
- AI meeting notes on a Mac without a bot
- Use your own ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini plan for meeting notes
- Transcribe audio files offline
Questions? Write to support@whispererapp.com. Prices and what each purchase includes are on the pricing page.