Voice typing for Mac
Hold ⌘, speak, release. Clean, punctuated text lands in the app you are already using.
For Mac. Free. Every Pro feature is included during the beta.
To: Sam
Thanks for the deck, Sam. I’ll review it tomorrow morning and get back to you.
- Free5,000 words per week3 skins
- Pro $19.99One-time purchase. Never expires. 1.x updates included.
- RequirementsMac with Apple silicon (M1 or later)macOS 26 or later (needed for Apple Intelligence)Apple Intelligence turned on (for text cleanup)
- Records only while you hold ⌘.
- Does not work on Windows, iPhone or Intel Macs.
- Works offline
- Your voice never leaves your Mac5
- Punctuation included
Your first sentence
Start voice typing with one sentence.
Hold ⌘ and read the line below out loud. Release, and the text lands where your cursor is. Once installed, try this first.
- Mail: Can we move tomorrow’s meeting to 10am?
- Chat: Sounds good, I’ll send the deck later.
- Notes: Buy milk and eggs. Stop by the post office.
- 日本語: 明日の会議、10時からでお願いします。
Clean text
Not word for word.
Ready to send.
Typical dictation writes down exactly what you said. Talkaway drops the “um”s, fixes the bits you corrected mid-sentence, adds punctuation, and only then types it in.3
Word for word
[removed: um so ] tomorrow’s meeting is at [removed: three oh wait ] four [removed: and uh ] the deck is already in the folder so if you could take a look that’d be great
Talkaway
Tomorrow’s meeting is at four. The deck is already in the folder, so it would be great if you could take a look.
Choose how much it tidies.
What you want depends on who you are writing to. Pick a style under Polish in Settings or the toolbar.
What you said (same for every style)
“um so the deck is uh in the folder it starts at three no wait four”
Fast (no AI)
No AI. Your words go in almost exactly as recognized. The fastest style.
What lands
um so the deck is uh in the folder it starts at three no wait four
Minimal (keeps your words)
Removes fillers and fixes punctuation. Your words and phrasing stay as they are.
What lands
So the deck is in the folder. It starts at three, no wait, four.
Clean (default)
Also fixes mid-sentence corrections and clumsy joins, so it reads as one clear message. Your voice stays.
What lands
The deck is in the folder. It starts at four.
Match the tone (Japanese)
When you dictate in Japanese, start with a phrase like 「取引先に送るメールです」 (“this is an email to a client”) and Talkaway switches to polite business Japanese, with greeting and sign-off. Casual style works the same way.
Spoken in Japanese, starting with 「取引先に送るメールです。」
What lands
〇〇様お世話になっております。資料はフォルダに入れております。16時からとなります。よろしくお願いいたします。
Translate (hold right ⌥)
Hold right ⌥ while you speak and Talkaway types a translation instead. Targets: English, Chinese (Simplified), Korean and Spanish. Translation also runs on your Mac.
With Spanish as the target
What lands
La presentación está en la carpeta. Empieza a las cuatro.
There is also a Summary style that keeps only the key points. Examples are illustrative; styles that use AI word things a little differently each time.
Fillers out
“Um”, “uh” and “like” are removed.
Corrections fixed
“Three, oh wait, four” becomes “four”.
Punctuation and breaks
Run-on speech is split into clear sentences.
Your choice of style
From light touch-ups that keep your words, to a short summary.
Offline
No internet?
No problem.
Speech recognition and cleanup both run on your Mac. In the back of a taxi, on a site with weak signal, or at home when the internet drops: speak, and the text still lands.
Activate once, then use it offline for good. Camping, in the mountains, on a plane. Dictation runs on your Mac, and once Pro is activated it keeps working offline with no time limit.
- In a taxi
- Phone booth or work pod
- Hotel on a work trip
- Job site or mountains with weak signal
- At home when the internet drops
The first time, macOS downloads the language data from Apple once. After that it works offline. Update checks and Pro confirmation happen when you are back online, and once activated, Pro keeps working offline with no time limit.
On your Mac
Your voice never leaves your Mac.
Work email, client names, plans that aren’t public yet. Nothing you say is handed to a server, so you can say it out loud without a second thought.
Processed on your Mac
Recognition uses macOS on-device speech recognition. Cleanup uses on-device Apple Intelligence.
Nothing kept
Audio is handled in memory and never written to a file. No accounts, no analytics, no ads.
Minimal network
The app itself only goes online to check for updates and, if you buy Pro, to confirm your license.
Your voice and text stay on your Mac. The one exception is the optional web search shortcut: if you turn it on and use it, the words you search for go to the search site you chose.
How it works
Hold. Speak. Release.
- 01
Hold ⌘
Left or right ⌘ both work. You can pick another key in Settings.
- 02
Speak
Talk the way you normally do. Talkaway turns it into text and adds punctuation.
- 03
Release
The text is pasted into the field you were typing in. Press Esc any time to cancel.
Mail, chat, notes, the browser. Anywhere you can type.
Speed
Speaking beats typing.
In a lab study, people entered text about three times faster by voice than with a keyboard. Over a day of emails and notes, that adds up.
The phone rows come from one study. The desktop row comes from a different study, so the bars are not a like-for-like test.
Speech figures include the time spent fixing recognition errors.
Rough guides from published studies, not measured with Talkaway.
Pricing
Start free. Buy Pro once if you like it.
| Free | Pro$19.99 |
|---|---|
| 5,000 words per week | Unlimited dictation |
| 3 skins | All skins |
| Personal dictionary: 20 words | Unlimited dictionary, auto-learn, import and export |
| Default theme | Choose or create theme colors |
| 1 Mac | Up to 3 Macs |
| One-time purchase. Never expires. 1.x updates included. |
Apple Pay available at checkout.
Activate once, then use it offline for good. Camping, in the mountains, on a plane. Dictation runs on your Mac, and once Pro is activated it keeps working offline with no time limit.
Pro is not on sale yet. When it is, it comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. Refund Policy
How fast does Pro pay for itself?
Move the sliders to match how you work.
- Saved per day
- 20 min
- Per month (20 days)
- 6.6 h
- Saved time needed
- 0.6 h
There’s a Free plan too: up to 5,000 words a week at no cost, so you can try it before you decide. During the beta, Pro features are free.
How this is calculated
- Minutes saved per day = typing minutes × share switched to voice × (1 − 1 ÷ speed multiple)
- Value per day = minutes saved ÷ 60 × hourly value
- Days to pay back = $19.99 ÷ value per day (counting days you use it)
- A month is counted as 20 working days
- The default 2.9× comes from Ruan et al. 2018 above (153 WPM ÷ 52 WPM, English, on phones). It is not a Mac or Talkaway measurement
- The hourly presets are examples for the calculation, not statistics
Teams and companies: how many Macs?
One seat is one Mac. We round up to packs of 10 and pick the cheapest mix of packs for you.
- Team 1010 Macs
$169 - Business 100100 Macs
$1,299
Buy 1 to 9 of each pack per purchase, and mix them freely. 1,000+ Macs is quoted.
Team 10 (10 Macs) $169. Business 100 (100 Macs) $1,299. Prices in USD, as charged by Paddle. 1,000+ Macs: quote via support@talkaway.app.
Total
Prices in USD, as charged by Paddle. Tax may be added at checkout depending on where you are. One-time purchase, no yearly fee.
- Per Mac
Sold through Paddle, our reseller. Full refund within 14 days. Move a seat to another Mac any time.
Skins
Make the recording bar yours.
The small display that appears while you speak is called a skin. It moves with your voice and calms down when Reduce Motion is on. Free includes 3 skins; Pro unlocks them all.4
Frosted Glass
Free
AI Orb
Free
Droplet (3D)
Free
Rings (3D)
Pro
Particles (3D)
Pro
Planet (3D)
Pro
Nebula (3D)
Pro
???
Hidden skin
There is one hidden skin. Say the right words and it appears. Once you find it, it works on Free too.
Import a skin
You can import a skin file (.talkawayskin) on the Skins page. Older .koeskin files still import. A skin holds only colours and numbers, never code, and you see a confirmation before it is added.
All together
Speak, and get clean text.
Offline, and only on your Mac.
Try one sentence on your Mac.
For Mac. Free. Every Pro feature is included during the beta.
Install
Opening it for the first time
Requirements
- Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later)
- macOS 26 or later (needed for Apple Intelligence)
- Apple Intelligence turned on (for text cleanup)
- Records only while you hold ⌘.
- Does not work on Windows, iPhone or Intel Macs.
Move to Applications
Open the DMG and drag Talkaway into Applications. Running it from the DMG or Downloads stops updates from working.
Open once, click Done
Open Talkaway from Applications. When macOS says “Talkaway” Not Opened, click Done. Do not click Move to Trash.
Open Anyway
Open System Settings > Privacy & Security and scroll to Security. Next to “Talkaway” was blocked to protect your Mac, click Open Anyway. The button shows for about an hour after step 2.
Confirm
Click Open Anyway again and enter your Mac password or use Touch ID.
Three permissions
Talkaway walks you through Microphone, Speech Recognition and Accessibility (used to detect your talk key and paste the text).
You only need steps 2 to 4 once. Right-click > Open does not skip this check.
FAQ
Questions
Does it work offline?
Yes. Speech recognition and cleanup both run on your Mac, so it works in a taxi or anywhere with weak signal. The first time, macOS downloads the language data once. Update checks happen when you are back online. Once activated, Pro also keeps working offline with no time limit.
How is it different from typical dictation?
It doesn’t just write down what you said. It removes fillers, fixes mid-sentence corrections and adds punctuation, so the text is ready to send. You can choose how much it tidies in Settings.
Can I choose how much it tidies?
Yes. Choose from five styles: Fast, Minimal, Clean, Match the tone, Translate. There is also a Summary style that keeps only the key points. Start in Japanese with 「取引先に送るメールです」 for business tone, or hold right ⌥ while you speak to type a translation.
Is anything I say sent anywhere?
No. Audio is handled in memory and never leaves your Mac. The app itself only goes online to check for updates and, if you buy Pro, to confirm your license. The one exception is the optional web search shortcut: if you turn it on and use it, the words you search for go to the search site you chose.
Can I change the talk key?
Yes. It is ⌘ (left or right) by default, and you can pick another key in Settings.
What if I misspeak?
Press Esc before you release to cancel. Text that has landed can be edited like any other text.
macOS says the app is damaged
The download was probably incomplete. Delete it and download again.
How do I uninstall Talkaway?
Quit Talkaway, then drag it from Applications to the Trash. To remove its settings and data as well, delete the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Talkaway.
What happens when the beta ends?
It switches to Free by itself. Settings, dictionary and history stay. You can buy Pro to keep the Pro features.
Which languages?
The app’s interface is in 34 languages. Which languages you can dictate in depends on what your macOS supports.
Can I get a refund?
Once Pro is on sale, you can get a refund within 14 days of purchase, no questions asked.