Private, hotkey-driven voice dictation for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Press a key, speak, press again — your words appear where you type.
The overlay transcribes live as you speak, shows progress while it finishes up, then confirms where the text landed — without stealing focus.
Earheart records your voice when you press a global hotkey, transcribes it with a speech-to-text service, optionally cleans the transcript up with a language model, and then pastes the result into whatever app you're typing in (or just copies it to your clipboard).
Out of the box both steps run inside the app, on your computer — no separate program, no Python, no account. The setup wizard downloads a small Parakeet speech model and a small Gemma cleanup model (with a progress bar) and runs them in-process. Nothing ever leaves your machine.
Prefer to point Earheart elsewhere? Both steps are also modular, OpenAI-compatible HTTP clients, so you can choose where your voice goes:
- Built-in (default): Parakeet + Gemma run in-process — fully private, nothing to install.
- Local server: run the Parakeet STT server and an Ollama/llama.cpp model yourself.
- Mix and match: local STT with a hosted LLM for cleanup, or any other combination. Switching is just a base URL in Settings.
- Global hotkey (default
Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Space): press to start, press to stop. A small overlay shows recording level and progress without stealing focus from the app you're dictating into. With the built-in engines, a slim bar tracks the finishing passes too — estimated from your machine's measured decode speed while transcribing (so it deliberately stops short of the end rather than overpromise), and following actual generation during cleanup. - Speech-to-text with NVIDIA Parakeet — by default Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3
(multilingual, 25 languages) runs in-process via sherpa-onnx / ONNX
Runtime, faster than realtime on CPU and with no network hop. Or point
Earheart at any OpenAI-compatible transcription API, or run the optional
earheart-sttserver yourself. - Live transcript while you speak (on by default) — with the built-in engine the overlay fills in the text as you talk, with a cleaned-up version settling in behind the raw words on pauses. The final transcript on stop is unchanged. Toggle it under Settings → Speech-to-text.
- LLM cleanup (on by default) — punctuation, filler-word removal, false starts. By default a small Gemma model runs in-process; or point cleanup at any OpenAI-compatible chat API. The prompt is fully editable. If cleanup fails, the raw transcript is delivered instead — your words are never lost.
- Auto-paste, clipboard, or both — paste straight into the focused app (with clipboard restore), paste and keep the transcript on the clipboard, or clipboard-only if you prefer to paste yourself.
- Start on login (optional) — have Earheart launch into the tray automatically when you sign in, so the hotkey is always ready. Off by default; toggle it under Settings → General. Works on Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Local history — recent transcriptions are kept in a local JSON file so a mis-aimed paste never loses a dictation. Can be disabled.
- No telemetry, no accounts, no cloud requirement.
Open the latest release page
and, under Assets, download the file that matches your system. <version>
is just the version number (e.g. 0.8.0).
🪟 Windows
- Most people:
Earheart-Setup-<version>.exe— the installer. - Don't want to install?
Earheart-<version>.exe— a portable build you can run directly.
🍎 macOS
- Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4):
Earheart-<version>-arm64.dmg - Intel Macs:
Earheart-<version>.dmg - Not sure which Mac you have? Click → About This Mac and look at "Chip" / "Processor".
🐧 Linux
- Any distro:
Earheart-<version>.AppImage— works everywhere. - Debian / Ubuntu:
earheart_<version>_amd64.deb— installs as a normal package.
| Your download | What to do |
|---|---|
Earheart-Setup-<version>.exe |
Double-click and follow the installer. |
Earheart-<version>.exe (portable) |
Just double-click to run — no install. |
Earheart-<version>*.dmg |
Open it, then drag Earheart into Applications. (See the macOS note below — the first launch needs one extra step.) |
Earheart-<version>.AppImage |
In a terminal: chmod +x Earheart-*.AppImage, then double-click or run it. |
earheart_<version>_amd64.deb |
sudo apt install ./earheart_<version>_amd64.deb |
⚠️ macOS first launch: "Earheart is damaged and can't be opened"This does not mean the app is broken. Earheart isn't signed/notarized yet, so macOS quarantines it. After dragging Earheart to Applications, run this once in Terminal:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Earheart.appThen open Earheart normally. (The "right-click → Open" trick only clears the milder "unidentified developer" warning, not the "damaged" one.) More detail in macOS notes below.
You only ever do this once: Earheart updates itself from GitHub releases (see below), and updates installed from inside the app clear the quarantine automatically.
That's it — the built-in engines need nothing else installed. The first-run wizard downloads the speech and cleanup models for you.
Earheart checks GitHub releases for a new version on startup and twice a day (toggle under Settings → Advanced → Updates) and shows a notification plus an Update to vX.Y.Z entry in the tray menu when one is out. One click downloads the release, verifies its checksum and reinstalls in place:
- Windows (installed): the new installer runs silently and the app relaunches. The portable exe can't update itself — the app opens the releases page instead.
- macOS: the app bundle is swapped and the quarantine attribute is
stripped automatically, so the updated app opens normally — no
xattrneeded after the first manual install. - Linux (AppImage): the AppImage file is replaced in place (same path, so
launchers and autostart keep working) and the app relaunches. A
.debinstall opens the releases page instead (upgrading needssudo).
If you'd rather run the Parakeet STT server as a separate
process (e.g. to share it with other tools or use a GPU), start it yourself and
point Earheart's speech-to-text at its URL (default http://127.0.0.1:8484/v1)
in Settings → Speech-to-text. Running it needs
uv installed:
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh # Linux / macOS
winget install astral-sh.uv # Windows
cd stt-server && uv run earheart-stt # start the serverOr point Earheart at a hosted transcription service (OpenAI, Groq, …) — Settings → Speech-to-text lets you enter its URL and API key instead.
Upgrading from 0.4.x? The in-process engines are new defaults; your existing configured STT/cleanup endpoints are preserved and keep working (migrated to the "remote" engine). The old "start a local STT server automatically" option has been removed — run the server yourself as above.
If there's no release for your platform (requires Node 22+):
git clone https://github.com/cleanunicorn/earheart
cd earheart
npm install
npm run dist # installers for the current platform land in dist/(Or run it unpackaged with npm start.)
On first launch a short setup wizard walks through hotkey, microphone, speech-to-text, cleanup and output. It sets up the on-device engines for both speech-to-text and cleanup, so first-run dictation is fully local and private with nothing to configure. Prefer a remote service? Switch any time in Settings → Speech-to-text or Settings → Cleanup.
The wizard's last step downloads the models that run on your machine — a small Parakeet speech model (≈ 670 MB) and a small Gemma cleanup model (≈ 800 MB) — showing a progress bar as it goes. It's a one-time download; everything after that is faster than realtime, even on CPU. You can pick a larger, higher- quality cleanup model in the wizard or later in Settings → Cleanup.
Cleanup is on by default and runs the built-in Gemma model in-process: a language model fixes punctuation and removes filler words and false starts, with no network hop. You can disable it, pick a larger built-in model, or edit the prompt in Settings → Cleanup.
Prefer to run cleanup elsewhere? Any OpenAI-compatible chat endpoint works. A fully local example with Ollama:
ollama pull llama3.1:8bThen in Settings → Cleanup: base URL
http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1, model llama3.1:8b. For a hosted service
instead, use its base URL, API key and model name (e.g. OpenRouter, Groq,
OpenAI).
- Put your cursor wherever you want text — an email, an editor, a chat box.
- Press the hotkey (default
Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Space). A small pill appears at the bottom of the screen showing your mic level; it never steals focus. - Speak, then press the hotkey again. Earheart transcribes, optionally cleans up, and pastes the result right where you were typing.
Earheart lives in your system tray. From the tray menu you can start a dictation, open the transcription history, or change any choice you made in the wizard:
A mis-aimed paste never loses your words: the History tab keeps recent transcriptions in a local file (you can turn this off).
Anything that implements the OpenAI API shapes works out of the box:
| Component | Endpoint used | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Speech-to-text | {base URL}/audio/transcriptions |
earheart-stt (local Parakeet), speaches, Groq (https://api.groq.com/openai/v1), OpenAI (https://api.openai.com/v1) |
| Cleanup | {base URL}/chat/completions |
Ollama, llama.cpp server, LM Studio, vLLM, OpenRouter, OpenAI, … |
The reverse is also true: earheart-stt is a standalone OpenAI-compatible
transcription server, usable from any other dictation app that supports custom
endpoints (e.g. OpenWhispr) or from scripts via the OpenAI SDK. See
stt-server/README.md for GPU use and other models.
-
Auto-paste needs a keystroke tool:
xdotool(X11) orwtype/ydotool(Wayland). Without one, Earheart falls back to clipboard-only and tells you.sudo apt install xdotool # X11 sudo apt install wtype # wlroots Wayland (Sway, Hyprland, …)
-
Global hotkeys on Wayland: GNOME and KDE on Wayland prevent apps from grabbing global keys. Instead, bind a system keyboard shortcut (GNOME Settings → Keyboard → Custom Shortcuts) to:
earheart --toggle
Earheart runs single-instance; a second invocation just toggles dictation in the running app.
-
"Earheart is damaged and can't be opened" on first launch means Gatekeeper has quarantined the download — the app is unsigned and not yet notarized, not corrupt. Drag it to Applications, then strip the quarantine attribute once:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Earheart.app
After that it opens normally. (Right-click → Open only works for the "unidentified developer" prompt, not the "damaged" one.)
-
The first dictation asks for Microphone permission.
-
Auto-paste simulates Cmd+V via System Events, which requires Accessibility permission (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable Earheart). If auto-paste stops working later, use Settings → Advanced → Fix auto-paste permission to re-check it and jump to the right System Settings pane.
- No special permissions needed. Auto-paste uses PowerShell
SendKeys.
- With the built-in engines (the default), audio and transcripts never leave the app process — there is no network hop and no localhost socket.
- If you point speech-to-text at an HTTP service instead, audio is held in
memory and sent only to the STT endpoint you configure (e.g.
127.0.0.1for the optional local Parakeet server). - Transcripts go to an external cleanup endpoint only if you switch cleanup to a remote service; the default Gemma cleanup stays on your machine.
- History and settings live in plain local files (Electron's user data directory). API keys are stored in that settings file — on shared machines, prefer local services or OS-level disk encryption.
- No telemetry, no accounts, no cloud.
Want to hack on Earheart? It's plain JavaScript with no bundler and only two runtime dependencies (the native STT and cleanup engines). See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development setup, architecture overview, and how to build installers.