Offline voice dictation
Press a shortcut, speak, and the text is pasted into the app you are using. Everything runs on your PC.
#Dictate in four steps
- Open Settings, then Voice, and download a model with Use. Free includes Tiny (English), Tiny (multilingual), Small and Moonshine Tiny.
- Click into the app where you want the text, such as an email or a document.
- Press Alt+A and speak. A compact overlay shows live audio activity.
- Press Alt+A again. Side Whisper transcribes, applies your Dictionary and Snippets, and pastes the result.
The default shortcut is configurable. Dictation always keeps a shortcut: it is the one global shortcut you cannot turn off.
#Models
A model downloads only when you choose it. Parakeet and Moonshine downloads are checked against a SHA-256 hash, Whisper downloads against their expected size. Settings show each model’s storage size and a recommended amount of RAM. Treat the RAM figure as guidance, not a measured minimum. Models run on the CPU of a 64-bit Windows PC. Parakeet and Moonshine do not need an NVIDIA GPU or CUDA.
| Model | Languages | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Tiny (English) | English | Free |
| Tiny (Auto) | Multilingual, translate to English | Free |
| Small | Multilingual, translate to English | Free |
| Moonshine Tiny | English | Free |
| Large Turbo | Multilingual | Pro |
| Large | Multilingual, translate to English | Pro |
| NVIDIA Parakeet v3 | 25 languages including Romanian, auto-detect | Pro |
Each model’s licence is shown in Settings. Parakeet is CC BY 4.0, with NVIDIA attribution.
#Dictionary and Snippets
- Dictionary fixes names, acronyms and recurring mistakes. For example, “side whisper” becomes “Side Whisper”.
- Snippets expand a spoken trigger into a longer saved block. For example, “sig” becomes your email signature.
- Free keeps up to 25 Dictionary entries and 25 Snippets. Pro has no limit.
- Both export and import as separate JSON files.
#Pasting
Choose to copy the result or to auto-paste it with Ctrl+V. Auto-paste works in any app that accepts a paste. The final text can remain in Windows clipboard history or in the destination app. Those systems decide that, not Side Whisper.
#Privacy
NoteDictation runs on your PC. There is no Side Whisper cloud transcription service, and recordings and transcripts are not uploaded. You need the internet only to download a model.
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