On-device voice-to-text for Mac
You think faster than you type.
Press. Speak. Done.
Hold one key and talk — in German, English, or Italian, no language picker. Clean text lands at your cursor in whatever app you're in, transcribed entirely on your Mac. Never in the cloud.
No cloud. No accounts. Your voice never leaves your Mac.
Free 7-day trial with everything enabled — no account, no payment details. Requires macOS 26 on Apple Silicon.
How it works
One key between a thought and the words on screen.
MundStift lives in your menu bar and waits. No window to find, no mode to enter — wherever your cursor is, that's where your words go.
Press
Hold Right Command — or any key you choose — in any app: Mail, Slack, your editor, a browser field. A small pill appears with a live waveform, so you know MundStift is listening.
Speak
Say what you mean, in German, English, or Italian. MundStift detects the language as you go — there's no picker to set first, and with Apple's engine the words appear live while you talk.
Done
Release the key. Your words are transcribed on your Mac and pasted at the cursor, and whatever was on your clipboard before is put back. Changed your mind mid-sentence? Esc discards the take.
Three tools, one app
Dictation, meetings, and files — one engine does it all.
Most tools stop at dictation. MundStift points the engine you've already set up — and the vocabulary you've taught it — at everything else you'd otherwise need a second app and a second multi-gigabyte model for.
Quick Dictation
Press, speak, release: text at your cursor in any app. Live waveform and timer while you talk, clipboard restored after the paste.
Meeting Recording
Record your microphone and the system audio of a call as two tracks, with separate level meters. The transcript labels speakers (Me/Others) with timestamps — export as Markdown, plain text, or subtitles. Unfinished recordings survive even a crash.
File Transcription
Drop in mp3, m4a, wav, aac, or flac recordings. They queue, transcribe locally, and export as .txt, .srt, or .vtt — with an inline preview of every transcript.
Keyboard-first throughout: ⌘⌥T for files, ⌘⌥M for meetings, ⌘⌥H for your history.
Private by design
Everything happens on your Mac. Nothing is sent to a server.
What you dictate — emails, notes, meetings — is your work, and often other people's words too. So MundStift keeps all of it local: speech recognition and AI enhancement run entirely on your Mac. No accounts, no cloud, no ads.
100% on-device
Speech recognition and AI enhancement run on Apple Silicon, not in a data center. Your audio and your text never leave the machine.
No account, nothing to sign into
Download, grant microphone access, dictate. MundStift doesn't know who you are — and doesn't need to.
Diagnostics? Opt-in only.
By default MundStift sends nothing at all. If you opt in, anonymous usage signals help improve the app — never your audio, never your text.
There is no MundStift server your audio could go to. On a plane with Wi-Fi off, it works exactly the same.
European data protection, by design — GDPR-ready.
- No cloud
- No accounts
- Works offline
- Made in Germany
Your languages
Speak German, English, or Italian. MundStift keeps up.
No language picker, no profile switching. Dictate a German email, answer an English Slack thread, leave an Italian note — MundStift detects what you're speaking, as you speak it.
Auto-detected, mid-flow
German, English, and Italian are first-class. MundStift recognizes the language on its own — and strips filler words like “um” and “äh” if you want it to.
Choose your engine
Apple SpeechAnalyzer is built in and streams words live. Parakeet v3, a ~155 MB download, brings the highest accuracy and 25+ languages. WhisperKit is there as an open-source alternative. Download, switch, or delete models in Settings.
Feedback you can trust
A live waveform and timer while you record, a clear pill for every state — starting, recording, finalizing, pasted. If nothing was transcribed, MundStift says so instead of pasting silence.
Starts on your Mac. Ends on your Mac.
No cloud transcription, no accounts, no tracking — your voice stays yours.
European data protection.
Your vocabulary
Your jargon, spelled right. Every time.
Names, products, acronyms — the words generic models get wrong are usually the ones that matter most. Teach MundStift your world once, and every tool in it spells you correctly.
Custom dictionary
Add the terms you actually use — client names, product names, technical vocabulary. Every dictation, meeting, and file transcript applies them automatically.
On-device AI enhancement
Turn a rambling take into a clean email, a summary, or bullet points with Apple's on-device models — ⌘⌥E rewrites your last transcript. Bring your own prompts, too. Like everything else: never in the cloud.
History that remembers
Every transcription lands in a searchable local history — browse by day, re-paste with one click, enhance later, or bulk-delete. Stored on your Mac, nowhere else.
Reliability is the product
A dictation tool gets one chance per press.
If the hotkey fails you once, you stop trusting it. MundStift is engineered around four bars that must always hold — they're the product spec, not a slogan.
Activation
The press always works
After sleep, after unplugging your mic, after days of uptime — the hotkey answers every time, and the pill confirms MundStift heard you.
Comprehension
The words come out right
The right language, your dictionary applied, fillers stripped. And if nothing could be transcribed, MundStift tells you right away — you never discover an empty paste later.
Delivery
Text lands where you meant it
Pasted at your cursor, with a focus guard so it never blind-pastes into an app you switched away from — and your clipboard is restored afterwards. If pasting isn't possible, your text is safe on the clipboard and MundStift says so.
Endurance
There all day, every day
Launches at login, sits quietly in the menu bar, survives sleep and wake. Even an unfinished meeting recording is recovered after a crash.
Simple, honest pricing
Try everything free for 7 days. Keep the core forever.
Download MundStift and use every feature for seven days — no account, no payment details. After the trial the core stays free, and a Pro subscription unlocks the power features.
7-day full trial
Everything enabled from the first press. No account, no payment information.
Free core
- Quick Dictation at your cursor, in any app
- File and meeting transcription to your clipboard
- Basic dictionary
Free forever after the trial — not a demo.
Pro
- Custom dictionary, applied everywhere
- AI enhancement with your own prompts
- Paste-at-cursor for files and meetings
- New power features as they ship
€4.99 per month, or €49 per year. A one-time €129 Patron licence is also available.
Direct download for macOS 26+ on Apple Silicon, with signed Sparkle updates. Prices in EUR; cancel anytime.
Questions, answered
Good things to know.
How does MundStift work?
Hold your hotkey — Right Command by default — speak, and release. MundStift transcribes on your Mac and pastes the text at your cursor in whatever app you're using. A small menu-bar pill walks through four states so you always know where you are: starting, recording, finalizing, pasted.
Is my audio really private?
Yes. Speech recognition and AI enhancement run entirely on your Mac — there is no MundStift cloud, no account, and your audio is never uploaded. Optional diagnostics are strictly opt-in, anonymous, and never include your audio or your text.
Does it work offline?
Completely. On a plane with Wi-Fi off, dictation, meeting recording, and file transcription all work exactly the same. You only need a connection to download a model or an update.
Which Macs does it run on?
MundStift requires macOS 26 or later on Apple Silicon (M1 or newer). That's what lets modern speech models run locally at full speed — the same reason there's no cloud.
Which languages can I speak?
German, English, and Italian are auto-detected — you never pick a language before speaking. Apple's engine also understands Spanish, French, Japanese, and Mandarin, and Parakeet v3 covers 25+ languages.
What are the engines, and do I have to choose?
Apple SpeechAnalyzer is built in, starts instantly, and shows words live as you speak. Parakeet v3 is a ~155 MB download with the highest accuracy. WhisperKit is available as an open-source alternative. Pick one during onboarding and switch anytime in Settings — models download, update, and delete with one click.
What does meeting recording actually capture?
With your permission: your microphone and your Mac's system audio — the other side of a Zoom or Teams call — as two separate tracks with their own level meters. The transcript labels speakers (Me/Others) with timestamps and exports as Markdown, plain text, or subtitles.
What does MundStift cost?
The 7-day trial includes everything, with no account and no payment details. After that, the core stays free: dictation at your cursor, plus file and meeting transcription to your clipboard. Pro adds the custom dictionary, AI enhancement with custom prompts, and paste-at-cursor everywhere — its price will be announced at launch.
How do updates work without the App Store?
MundStift ships as a notarized direct download and updates itself with Sparkle — the signed update mechanism trusted Mac apps have used for years. Check for updates anytime in Settings, or let it check automatically.