Coming to the Mac App Store
Dictation that stays on your Mac
Press the right ⌘ key, say what you want to write, press it again. Spunly types it wherever your cursor is. Speech is recognised on the Mac itself, so your voice is never uploaded.
For Macs with Apple Silicon, macOS 14 and later
- Recognition
- On the Mac, Neural Engine
- Model
- NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3
- Languages
- 25, detected automatically
- Price, planned
- Free · Pro $19.99 once
How it works
One key, twice
Press
Tap right ⌘, or another hotkey you set. Spunly starts listening straight away, with no window to open first.
Speak
Talk the way you would to a person. Pauses are fine. Prefer holding the key while you talk? Switch to hold-to-talk.
Press again
The text appears where your cursor is. Turn on auto-Enter and a chat message sends itself.
Works in any app that accepts typing: Mail, Slack, Telegram, Notes, Google Docs in the browser, Xcode, VS Code, the terminal.
Where your voice goes
Nowhere. It stays on the Mac.
Spunly uses NVIDIA’s Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 speech model, running on the Apple Neural Engine through FluidAudio and Core ML. The model lives on your disk, so recognition needs no server and no internet.
Stays on your Mac
- Your audio. It is transcribed and discarded, never sent.
- Your transcripts, history and corrections dictionary.
- Usage stats: they are counted locally, for you.
Goes over the network, and when
- The speech model, about 460 MB
- Downloaded once, on first launch
- Text only, if you turn on AI cleanup
- Sent to the provider you chose, with your own key. Off by default
There is no account to create, and the app sends us nothing at all.
Features
What’s in the app today
Spunly lives in the menu bar. These are its settings, as they exist in the current build.
Dictating
- Toggle or hold-to-talk
- Press once to start and once to stop, or hold the key while you speak.
- Your hotkey
- Right ⌘ by default, plus an alternative hotkey if you need one.
- Microphone choice
- Use the built-in mic, a headset or a USB microphone.
- Quiet while recording
- Optionally mutes system audio so music or a video doesn’t get into the recording.
After you speak
- Auto-Enter
- Presses Return after inserting the text. Handy in chats and terminals.
- Corrections dictionary · Pro
- Replace words automatically: names, product terms, the word the model always spells its own way.
- AI cleanup, with your own key · Pro
- Tidies punctuation and grammar through any OpenAI-compatible provider you choose. Off by default; only text is sent.
History and files
- Quick history
- Your last 100 transcripts in a panel. Click one to copy it again.
- Audio files to text · Pro
- Drop in a recording and get a .txt file back, transcribed on the Mac.
- Usage stats
- How much you dictated, counted on the Mac and shown only to you.
Languages
25 European languages, detected automatically
You don’t pick a language before speaking. The model recognises it on its own, so you can write to a colleague in English and to your family in Romanian or Russian with the same key.
English, Russian, Romanian, Ukrainian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese.
Language list from the Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 model card by NVIDIA.
Price
Pay once, keep it
Planned The final price will be listed in the Mac App Store at launch.
Spunly
Free
download
- Full recognition quality
- 2,000 words a week
- Every language, every app
Spunly Pro
$19.99
one-time purchase
- No weekly limit
- Corrections dictionary, audio file import, AI cleanup
- Family Sharing
- No subscription
Requirements
- Mac
- Apple Silicon: M1 or newer
- System
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later
- Disk
- About 2 GB free
- Internet
- Only once, to download the model
Prices in other countries are set by the App Store price tiers.
Questions
Does Spunly send my voice to a server?
No. Speech recognition runs on your Mac’s Neural Engine with a model stored on your disk. The audio is transcribed locally and never uploaded. The only network use is the one-time model download and, if you enable it, AI cleanup, which sends text (not audio) to a provider you pick.
Does it work offline?
Yes. After the speech model (about 460 MB) has been downloaded once, dictation works without an internet connection, on a plane or behind a strict corporate firewall.
Which languages does Spunly understand?
25 European languages, including English, Russian, Romanian, Ukrainian, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish. The model detects the language by itself, so there is nothing to switch.
Which apps can I dictate into?
Any app with a text field that has focus: Mail, Messages, Slack, Telegram, Notes, Word, Google Docs in the browser, code editors and the terminal. Spunly types the text where your cursor is.
Which Macs are supported?
Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) running macOS 14 Sonoma or later. You need about 2 GB of free space. Intel Macs are not supported, because the model runs on the Apple Neural Engine.
How much will it cost?
The plan is a free download with 2,000 words a week, and Spunly Pro as a one-time purchase of $19.99 with no subscription and Family Sharing. Pricing is final only once it appears in the Mac App Store.
What is AI cleanup, and do I need it?
An optional step that fixes punctuation and grammar after recognition. It is off by default. If you turn it on, you add your own API key for an OpenAI-compatible service, and only the recognised text is sent there. Spunly works fully without it.
When can I download it?
Spunly is being prepared for the Mac App Store. Send us an email and we will write once when it is available.
Who makes Spunly?
KERNEXIT S.R.L., a software company in Chișinău, Moldova, and a resident of Moldova IT Park. Spunly builds on open-source work: SuperDictate and Parakey (MIT) and NVIDIA’s Parakeet model (CC BY 4.0).
Want to know when it’s out?
One email at launch. We don’t run a newsletter.
Email me at launch