Speech stays where it was spoken
Dictation that never leaves your Mac.
Hold a key. Talk. Clean, punctuated text appears in whatever app you're using. It all runs on your Mac, so it works on a plane, and nothing you say is sent anywhere.
Version 1.2.2 · 18 MB · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon · English, 한국어, 中文. Free in early access, and free forever if you download it now.
Heard
um so let's let's rebase onto main and then uh run git status before we push you know
Typed
Let's rebase onto main, then run git status
before we push.
Filler words and false starts go. Punctuation arrives. Commands and file paths are left exactly as you said them.
Nothing you say or type is ever collected.
Not stored. Not sent. Not used to train anything.
Other dictation apps send your voice to their servers. They keep it. Some train on it. That is a lot to accept when you're dictating into a work terminal, a contract, or a message to a colleague.
Lekton cannot do any of that. The recognition and the cleanup both run on your Mac, so there is nothing to upload — your words are written to your own disk and nowhere else.
What we do and don't run- Speech recognised on your Mac
- Transcripts cleaned up on your Mac
- Works with no internet at all
- No dictation audio uploaded
- No transcripts uploaded
- No usage data collected
- No training on anything you say
Talk to your coding agent.
Long instructions are painful to type and easy to say. Claude Code, Codex, any terminal. Lekton types into the prompt you already have open.
What you say
“okay so um can you look at paste swap dot swift and uh figure out why the — why the fallback isn't firing in electron apps, and then add a test for it”
What lands in the prompt
Can you look at PasteSwap.swift and figure out why the
fallback isn't firing in Electron apps, then add a test for it?
Illustration, not a screenshot. Every change shown is one Lekton makes.
Code stays code
In a terminal, nothing gets tidied into prose. Flags, paths and branch names come out exactly as you said them.
Your repo's vocabulary
Lekton reads the window you're dictating into, so it already knows today's filenames and branch names. Nothing is stored. Nothing is sent.
Say it once.
Dictation only saves you time if you don't have to fix it afterwards. These are the numbers for how accurately Lekton hears you, with Pro Voice installed.
Up to 4×
Fewer mistakes than macOS dictation*
Two wrong words in a hundred instead of eight, on the same recordings.
98%
Of your words, correct*
The dictation built into macOS manages 92% on the same recordings.
2.5×
Fewer mistakes on names and jargon*
Branches, filenames, product names. Lekton reads them off your screen first.
* Word accuracy with Pro Voice installed, against the dictation built into macOS, on identical recordings. The gap is widest on clear speech and narrower on noisy or heavily accented speech. Punctuation, capitals and filler removal come on top of this; a word-accuracy score cannot see them.
98% and 92% sound close. They are not. That is four times as many words to go back and fix, and the mistakes land on names and technical terms, the words you least want to retype. Until you install Pro Voice, Lekton uses Apple's engine and hears what macOS hears; the cleanup is better from the first minute, the accuracy arrives with the download.
It types into whatever is in front of you.
Not a box you dictate into and copy out of.
Every app, not a supported list
Browsers, terminals, chat apps, remote desktops, full-screen games. If one way of typing doesn't work, Lekton quietly tries another.
A fallback that always works
If an app refuses typed text, like a password field, your words are already on the clipboard. Press ⌘V. You never lose what you said.
Knows the words on your screen
The names, files and projects no dictionary has heard of. Lekton reads them off your screen, uses them once, then forgets them.
No internet needed
On a plane, on hotel wifi that has given up, on a locked-down network. Lekton never waits on a server, so it never slows down when one is busy and never stops when one is down.
Writes the way that app expects
Code stays literal in a terminal. Mail and Messages get proper sentences. You never set a mode.
The better model is free.
Lekton works straight away using Apple's built-in speech engine. Pro Voice swaps in a much better one. About 3× fewer mistakes, about 2× faster, still entirely on your Mac.
Lekton is in early access, so Pro Voice is free. Every other tool charges monthly for its best model.
Download it during early access and it stays free for you, permanently, even if we charge for it later. That is our thank you for being early. Not a trial, not a countdown.
Optional, and not needed to download. If Pro Voice is ever priced, this is how your free unlock code reaches you. Occasional updates about Lekton, and nothing else. One click unsubscribes. Privacy.
It leaves your words alone.
Cleanup should take out the “um”s and put the punctuation in — not reword what you said. Both models below ran on the same 482 pieces of already-correct writing, with the same instructions. The only right answer was to hand them back untouched.
99%
Left exactly as written, by Lekton†
Apple’s on-device model: 83%. It reworded roughly one piece in six.
0
Refusals†
Apple’s model declined 1.5% of these outright — ordinary work text, returned uncleaned.
2.5×
Fewer invented words†
Words appearing in neither what you said nor what you meant: 3% against 7.9%.
† 482 pieces of already-correct writing — commit messages, code instructions, email, notes, prose — produced by AI models ours had never seen in training, so the numbers describe unfamiliar text rather than its own homework. Both models were given the identical instructions and scored identically; only the model changed. Differences in curly quotes and dashes are forgiven for both. On text from its own training source Lekton scores higher still; we do not think that number means much.
This is the failure people actually notice. Ask a cleanup model to tidy a commit message that was already fine and it will often rewrite it anyway — add a fence around it, swap a word, turn “You must return the equipment” into “Return the equipment”. Lekton’s model was rebuilt specifically to stop doing that, and it still removes every filler word on text that needs cleaning.
The questions worth asking.
Do you have servers at all?
Yes, one. It serves the Pro Voice model download and a daily update check, and it accepts a crash report if you press the button to send one — Lekton shows you the whole thing first, and it carries nothing that identifies you or your Mac. What never goes up is the part that matters: your audio, your transcripts, what you type, and how much you use it. All of that is processed on your Mac and stays there. We would rather tell you we have servers than claim we do not and have you find the traffic later.
Does Apple see what I dictate?
No. Lekton tells macOS to keep recognition on your Mac. With Pro Voice installed, Apple's engine isn't used at all.
Is there any analytics?
None. If we ever add any it will be about the app: crashes, whether a feature was used. Never anything you said. And the switch to turn it off will ship the same day it does.
Why does it want Accessibility permission?
For the press-to-talk key, and to type into other apps. Without it Lekton still works. It puts your text on the clipboard to paste, and you start from the menu bar.
What languages does it support?
English, Korean and Chinese. Each language has its own cleanup model, trained separately, because a model that tidies English well does not tidy Korean well. More are coming. We would rather add a language properly than badly.
Does it work offline?
Completely, once it's installed. On a plane, on a locked-down network. Dictation never needs the internet.
What do you need to run it?
macOS 14 or later, on an Apple silicon Mac, M1 or newer.
Anything else
A person reads this. Bugs, questions, "it did something strange in Figma" — all welcome.