// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Show HN: FnScribe – Open-source, offline dictation for macOS
Hold a shortcut, speak, and release—or use hands-free mode for longer thoughts.
FnScribe transcribes your voice locally and inserts the result into the app you
are using. It lives in the menu bar and stays out of the way until you need it.
Download for Apple Silicon ·
Download for Intel Mac
FnScribe requires an Apple Silicon or 64-bit Intel Mac running macOS 13 Ventura
or later.
The default push-to-talk shortcut is the fn/Globe key. To change it, click the
menu-bar microphone, click the shortcut button, and press a new key combination.
For hands-free dictation, press fn + Space once to start and again to stop. You
can also turn a push-to-talk recording into hands-free mode by pressing Space
while continuing to hold fn. Press Escape at any point to cancel without
inserting text. The compact flowbar shows the active stage and provides Stop and
Cancel controls. Recordings stop automatically after two minutes.
The settings panel lets you choose a microphone and launch FnScribe at login.
Smart cleanup is enabled by default. It removes conservative fillers (um,
uh, and erm) and understands explicit formatting such as comma, period,
question mark, new line, and new paragraph. Repeated number one,
number two or bullet phrases become lists. Say scratch that to discard the
current clause; for short value corrections, say two, actually three, or use
actually make that for an explicit replacement.
The personal dictionary supplies local recognition hints and preserves exact
spelling and capitalization. Each entry has a Write as value and an optional
Common mishearing replacement—for example, FnScribe and fn scribe.
Dictionary entries are stored only in FnScribe's local settings file, with
owner-only file permissions, and are never transmitted.
If automatic insertion ever fails, use Copy Last Transcript or Paste Last
Transcript from the menu-bar menu. That recovery transcript exists only in
memory and disappears when FnScribe quits. If smart cleanup changed the last
dictation, Original copies the unmodified transcription for recovery.
Speech recognition runs entirely on your Mac using a bundled Whisper model.
Audio and transcripts are held only in memory: there is no account, cloud
service, transcription history, or notes database.
For broad compatibility, automatic insertion uses a short-lived, concealed
clipboard entry and immediately restores the previous clipboard when it has not
changed in the meantime. The transcript remains available only in memory for
recovery; choosing Copy Last Transcript is the only persistent clipboard
action.