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Dictum
Try free
Push-to-talk dictation for macOS

Hold. Speak. Drafted.

No cloud requirement, no typing, no friction. Local transcription on your Mac — the cleaned text lands directly in your active window.

Download for macOS How it works

Try free for 7 days, no card required

Apple Silicon · macOS 12+ · Audio never leaves your Mac

The dictation problem

Dictation software is either cloud-mandatory or stuck in 2007.

Neither works for a law firm. Anyone serious about attorney-client privilege cannot upload audio to a third-party cloud. Anyone working on modern Mac tooling will not accept a 2007 setup.

Dictum closes the gap: locally transcribed, professionally packaged.

How it works

Three motions. No context switch.

  1. Hold the key

    Press any modifier key — Right Option, Fn, or one of eight alternatives.

  2. Speak

    Dictate at full pace. Whisper runs locally on the Apple Silicon Neural Engine.

  3. Release

    The cleaned text is pasted via Cmd+V into the focused window. Word, Outlook, Pages, your email client.

Hands-free mode: double-tap starts recording without holding; a single tap stops.

Confidentiality

Audio never leaves your Mac.

We understand the compliance reality in DACH law firms. Dictum is built for it.

Local Whisper transcription

The Whisper model (large-v3-turbo-q5_0, multilingual) ships as a binary library inside the app bundle. No server connection required for transcription.

GDPR-compliant

Processing happens on your device. The optional AI cleanup runs through a hardened Dictum proxy and can be disabled. DPA available on request.

Privilege-safe

No recording, no cloud sync, no tracking. The dictation history stays local and can be switched off entirely.

Features

Built for daily use, not for demos.

Configurable hotkey

Nine modifier keys to choose from. Right Option is the default — no collision with standard shortcuts.

Hands-free mode

Double-tap to start recording without holding. Single tap to stop. For longer dictations without finger gymnastics.

Custom vocabulary

Case numbers, statutes, firm phrasing. Substitutions rewrite terms; hints improve recognition.

Wispr Flow import

Bring your existing vocabulary across with one click — read-only, no foreign data is modified.

Dictation history

Last transcripts are available locally. Can be disabled fully — no history is written if you don't want one.

Optional AI cleanup

Punctuation, filler removal, clean sentences via a hardened Dictum proxy. Off via a single switch.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Where is my audio processed?

Locally on your Mac. Whisper runs as a binary library inside the app bundle. Audio is never uploaded.

Doesn't the AI cleanup run online?

Optional. The cleanup — punctuation, filler removal — runs through a hardened Dictum proxy and can be switched off in settings. The raw transcript is not affected.

Does Dictum work with Word, Outlook, Pages, email clients?

With any Mac app you can type into. Dictum pastes the text via Cmd+V into the focused application.

Which Mac models are supported?

Apple Silicon (M1 or newer), macOS 12 or later.

What do updates cost?

Included in the subscription. No separate upgrade fees.

Can I cancel?

Any time. The subscription runs until the end of the paid period. After that, the AI cleanup feature deactivates; local transcription continues to work offline.

GDPR?

Yes. Audio is processed locally on your device. A data processing agreement (DPA) for the optional AI cleanup is available on request.