Speak. It's typed.
Nothing leaves your Mac.

Hold a key and talk. Hold to Say turns your voice into clean text in any app, entirely on your Mac.

Download for macOS See how it works

Free for 14 days, no card. Then £9/month. Requires macOS 26 on Apple Silicon.

Three moves. No windows, no modes.

fn

Hold

Press and hold the Fn key from any app. A small pill appears so you know Hold to Say is listening.

Speak

Say what you mean to type. Sentences, replies, whole paragraphs. Ums and false starts get cleaned up.

⏎

Release

Let go and the text is in your document, punctuated and capitalised, in about half a second.

Your voice is yours. Full stop.

Cloud dictation tools upload your audio, and some capture your screen for context. Hold to Say does neither. Everything runs on your Mac's Neural Engine.

No audio leaves your MacTranscription is fully on-device. Airplane mode works fine.
No screen captureHold to Say never looks at your screen, let alone uploads it.
No accountDownload, grant two permissions, dictate. Nothing to sign up for.

Built native. Feels native.

~0.4s from key release to text

NVIDIA's Parakeet model on the Apple Neural Engine. Faster and more accurate than a round trip to anyone's server.

Works where you type

Any text field in any app.

  • Notes
  • Mail
  • Slack
  • VS Code
  • Terminal
  • Safari

25+ languages

Automatic language detection on the primary engine, with 40+ more via the macOS system engine.

Cleans as it types

um so I think I think we should ship it

I think we should ship it.

Less than the cloud tools. And your voice stays put.

The cloud dictation apps charge more every month and upload your voice to do it. Hold to Say runs entirely on your Mac, for less.

Hold to Say

£9/month · 14 days free
  • Unlimited dictation, any app
  • 100% on-device, works offline
  • No audio ever uploaded
  • Use on up to 3 of your Macs
  • Cancel anytime
Start your 14 days free
No card for the trial. Then £9/month, or subscribe now.

Typical cloud dictation

~£12+/month, every month
  • Audio processed on their servers
  • Some capture your screen for context
  • Stops working offline
  • Your words leave your device
Cheaper here, and nothing leaves your Mac.

Questions, answered

Does my voice really stay on my Mac?

Yes. Recording, transcription and cleanup all run locally. Hold to Say makes no network calls while you dictate; you can verify that with any network monitor.

Which Macs does it run on?

Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or newer) running macOS 26 or later.

How is it different from cloud dictation apps?

Cloud tools upload your audio, and some capture your screen for context. Hold to Say does neither. It is also faster, because nothing makes a round trip.

What does it cost?

£9 a month, with a 14-day free trial that needs no card. Download it, use it free for two weeks, and only subscribe if you want to keep it. You can use one subscription on up to three of your Macs, and cancel anytime.

Why does it need Microphone and Accessibility permissions?

Microphone to hear you; Accessibility to detect the hotkey and paste text where your cursor is. Both are standard for dictation utilities.

Is the app safe to open? Any Gatekeeper warnings?

None. Hold to Say is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so it opens cleanly on any Mac — just download, drag to Applications, and launch.

Stop typing everything twice.

Start your 14 days free

Free for 14 days, no card. Then £9/month. macOS 26, Apple Silicon. 3.9 MB.