Private, On-Device Voice Dictation — TypeWhisper Setup for Mac

Your voice is never sent to the cloud, never uploaded to a company, never used to train anything. Press one key, talk, and clean text appears wherever your cursor is — email, docs, chat, the terminal, anywhere. It’s free, it’s one app, and the part that matters most is the simplest: everything happens on your computer.

That’s the real reason to use this instead of the alternatives. Apple’s own dictation sends your audio to Apple; most “free” transcription tools upload everything you say to their servers. This one doesn’t — the speech engine runs locally, right on your machine. Here’s the proof: finish the setup, then turn off WiFi and use it — it works exactly the same. Nothing is leaving, because nothing needs to.

The plan: install TypeWhisper, then make the otherwise-useless Caps Lock key your “talk” button. About 10 minutes.

TypeWhisper — the dictation app (https://www.typewhisper.com/)

Why we touch Caps Lock at all: TypeWhisper’s most comfortable hotkey needs a key you can hold down to talk. Caps Lock is perfectly placed and nobody uses it, so we point it at “F18” — a key your keyboard doesn’t physically have, so nothing else ever conflicts with it. We do this with hidutil, a tool built into macOS (Apple’s own). No extra app, no driver, nothing sent anywhere — and it’s reversible in one command (see Uninstall at the bottom).

Step 1 — TypeWhisper: install + permissions

Download TypeWhisper from https://www.typewhisper.com/ and open it.
Grant the two permissions it asks for (System Settings → Privacy & Security): Microphone (so it can hear you) and Accessibility (so it can type the words into other apps).
Enable launch at login here too.

Step 2 — Integrations: the transcription engine

TypeWhisper transcribes through plug-in “integrations.” Open Settings → Integrations → Marketplace and install:

Parakeet — the speech-to-text engine (NVIDIA Parakeet TDT). Fast, accurate, 25 languages, runs entirely on your Mac. Make it the selected engine, and turn on vocabulary boosting in its settings (this lets your dictionary entries from Step 5 steer the engine).
Filler Words — automatically strips “um,” “uh,” and friends from the transcript. Install it and you’ll sound articulate forever.
(Optional) Apple Speech — a second on-device engine (needs macOS 26+). Nice to have as a fallback; keep Parakeet selected.

Everything in the panel should say Local (“3 Local · 0 Cloud” if you installed all three) — that’s how you know nothing leaves the machine.

Step 3 — Turn Caps Lock into your “talk” key

This is the one Terminal step, and it’s reversible. It does two things: remaps Caps Lock to F18 right now, and drops a small file in your account so the remap comes back automatically every time you log in.

Copy the whole block below and paste it into Terminal, then press Return:

# 1) Create the helper script that does the remap (Caps Lock -> F18)
SCRIPT="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Caps Lock Dictation"
cat > "$SCRIPT" <<'SH'
#!/bin/sh
# Remaps Caps Lock -> F18 so it can trigger TypeWhisper dictation.
# Runs Apple's built-in hidutil. Remove anytime (see Uninstall, below).
exec /usr/bin/hidutil property --set \
  '{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000039,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x70000006D}]}'
SH
chmod +x "$SCRIPT"

# 2) Create the login item that runs that script at every startup
cat > "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/local.capslock-to-f18.plist" <<PLIST
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>local.capslock-to-f18</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>$SCRIPT</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>
PLIST

# 3) Turn it on now (and at every future login)
launchctl unload "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/local.capslock-to-f18.plist" 2>/dev/null
launchctl load  "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/local.capslock-to-f18.plist"

echo "Done. Caps Lock now sends F18."

That’s the only command-line you’ll touch. Two small notes:

In System Settings → General → Login Items you’ll see a new item called Caps Lock Dictation — that’s this (see below). It will also say “unidentified developer”; that’s normal for any hand-made login item and is harmless. Leave it on — it’s what re-applies the remap each time you log in.
Caps Lock no longer toggles capitals while this is on — that’s the point. You can still type ALL CAPS by holding Shift.

Step 4 — Bind the hotkey in TypeWhisper

Open Settings → Hotkeys, find Hybrid, click to record it, and press Caps Lock once. It will register as FnKey 79 — that’s TypeWhisper’s name for F18, and it’s the same on every Mac. Save.

One key, two behaviors:

Hold Caps Lock → talk while holding, release to stop. (For quick sentences — most of your use.)
Tap Caps Lock → recording starts and stays on; tap again to stop. (For long, hands-free dictation.)

Leave the separate Push-to-Talk and Toggle slots alone — Hybrid covers both. It should look like this:

TypeWhisper Hotkeys: Hybrid bound to FnKey 79, Push-to-Talk and Toggle
unbound

Step 5 — Dictionary: fix the words it gets wrong

The engine will mishear names — your company, your clients, people you talk about. Fix each one once in Settings → Dictionary with a Correction (misheard form → what should be typed), and it’s right forever after.

Examples from my own list:

When it hears…	It types…
Webdogs / web dogs	WEBDOGS
Y three K	Y3K
Sergei	Sergey

Add corrections as you go — every time dictation flubs a name, take ten seconds to add the fix.

WEBDOGS team: add all four brand corrections — Webdogs, web dogs, web dog's, and WebDog's, each → WEBDOGS — so the company name always lands right. It looks like this:

That’s it

Hold Caps Lock, say “this is so much faster than typing,” let go, and watch it appear. From here on, anywhere you’d type, you can talk.

Tips

Speak naturally and don’t bother saying “um-free” sentences — Filler Words cleans that up.
Punctuation and capitalization happen automatically — just talk normally, no need to say “comma” or “period.” (If you ever want them, spoken commands still work as a fallback.)
Dictate the messy first draft by voice, then tidy by keyboard — drafting is where voice wins big.

Uninstall / restore normal Caps Lock

Changed your mind, or just want Caps Lock back to normal? Nothing here is permanent. Paste this block into Terminal and press Return:

# Stop the remap from coming back at login, remove its files, and undo it now
launchctl unload "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/local.capslock-to-f18.plist" 2>/dev/null
rm -f "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/local.capslock-to-f18.plist"
rm -f "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Caps Lock Dictation"
hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":[]}'

echo "Done. Caps Lock is back to normal."

That removes the login item and its helper script and restores Caps Lock immediately — no reboot needed. (To also remove TypeWhisper itself, just drag the app to the Trash; nothing else was installed.)

What got added to your Mac, in full: one app (TypeWhisper) and two small text files — ~/Library/Application Support/Caps Lock Dictation (the helper script that runs Apple’s built-in hidutil) and ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.capslock-to-f18.plist (the login item that runs it). No drivers, no background services beyond that login item, nothing sent off your machine. The block above removes both files.