Dictate into your Mac apps with Soufflé

Soufflé records your voice from a global shortcut and turns it into text on your Mac. You can copy the result or insert it into the app you were using, without switching to a separate editor.

Updated

Start here

  1. Put the cursor where you want the text, then press your dictation shortcut. Choose toggle or push-to-talk in Settings → Interface.
  2. Speak, then stop the recording. Kyutai streams text while you speak; Whisper and Parakeet produce the result once you stop.
  3. Paste the copied text, or enable auto-paste. If an app rejects insertion, check Accessibility access or choose simulated typing in Settings → Interface.

Dictation

Press the shortcut anywhere, talk, press it again. The text is inserted into whatever app had focus, or copied to the clipboard while auto-paste is off. Press Esc during a toggle dictation to throw it away. If a paste fails, the text waits on Home under Dictation to recover until you copy or delete it.

Apps that reject a synthetic paste (terminals, secure fields) can receive simulated keystrokes instead. Settings → Interface offers three insertion methods: the clipboard and ⌘V, simulated typing, or a direct write to the focused field through Accessibility.

Two passes run on the way out, and each can be turned off. Dictation polish, on by default when a provider is available, sends the raw transcript through a local LLM with an editable prompt template (clean up, professional email, bullet points, remove fillers) and needs Apple Intelligence or Ollama. Learn from edits, on by default, watches the field just after insertion: correct a misheard name by hand once and Soufflé keeps that spelling for next time, in the custom dictionary under Settings → Transcription.

Voice snippets live under Settings → Transcription: say a trigger phrase at the start of a dictation and Soufflé pastes the expansion instead, case- and accent-insensitive, with no AI polish on that take. The menu bar also offers Copy Last Transcription when you need the previous take back, and Pause Shortcut (1h) when you need the key for something else.

Optional start and stop sounds confirm the shortcut landed.

Shortcuts

Both dictation shortcuts are set in Settings → Interface. Each takes a classic combo with a modifier, or a single key (a lone left or right modifier, or F5–F12), which needs the Accessibility permission so the native tap can install. The two bindings cannot share a combination.

Toggle dictationPress once to start, once to stop. ⌘⇧Space by default.
Push-to-talkHold to record, release to stop. Not set by default; bind a classic combo or a single key (lone modifier, F5–F12) if you prefer holding.
CancelEsc discards a toggle dictation in progress. It is only captured while one is running.

The overlay

Dictation does not open a window. A small overlay, the pill, appears above whatever you are working in: a recording dot, the label, a live waveform and a stop button. It stays compact until there is text to show, then widens and grows line by line as you talk.

When you stop, the pill switches to Reformulating… while the local polish pass runs, then disappears as the text lands in the field you were already using. By default the window is excluded from screen capture, so it does not turn up in the meeting you are in; Hide recording overlay in screen captures in Settings → Interface turns that off.

You can hide the overlay in Settings → Interface; drag it when visible to move it. Position is remembered across display changes.