Listening …
Runs on your Mac. Your voice stays there.
Speak. Orbly types it where your cursor is.
Orbly is a free dictation app for macOS and iPhone. Hold a key, say the sentence, let go. Speech becomes text on your own device. No account, no cloud, no subscription.
Version 1.1.3 · macOS 14 or newer, Apple Silicon and Intel. Free and open source.
Orbly pastes into the field you are already typing in. That works in every app.
How it works
Three seconds, start to finish
No window to open, no button to find. The key you already rest your thumb on becomes the microphone.
Hold Fn
A small overlay appears with a live waveform, so you can see that Orbly is listening. Tap Fn instead of holding it and the recording keeps running until you tap again.
Say the sentence
Speak at your normal pace. Music and Spotify get quieter or pause while you talk, then go back to where they were.
Let go
The text is inserted at the cursor position in whatever app you are in. A short sentence takes about a second. Esc cancels the recording.
Features
Everything it does, nothing it does not
Orbly has one job. The settings exist so it fits your machine, not so you have to configure it.
Transcription on your machine
Whisper runs locally through whisper.cpp. Your audio is never uploaded, so dictation also works on a plane or a train.
Two ways to trigger it
Hold Fn for push to talk, or tap it once to start and once to stop. Esc throws the recording away.
Paste or clipboard
By default the text goes straight into the field you are typing in. Turn insertion off and Orbly only fills the clipboard.
Recognition in many languages
Whisper detects the spoken language automatically, or you pin one. The interface itself ships in English, German, Spanish, French and Russian.
Optional home server
Point Orbly at a whisper server on your own machine in the same network. Your Mac then keeps no model in memory. OpenAI compatible endpoints work too.
Frees its own memory
After three idle minutes the local engine shuts down and gives the RAM back. It restarts while you are still speaking, so you do not notice.
History you control
The last dictations are one click away for copying. Entries older than three days are removed automatically, and you can switch history off entirely.
Stats without content
Words, dictations, speaking time and estimated time saved. Orbly stores the numbers only, never the dictated text.
Stays out of the way
Orbly lives in the menu bar. Pick the overlay style and where on screen it shows up, then forget it is there.
Your voice never leaves the device
Dictation tools usually send your audio to a server. Orbly does not. The model runs on your Mac or on your iPhone, which is why it also works offline.
No account
No sign up, no email address, no license server call on every start.
No tracking
No analytics, no telemetry, no third party scripts on this website either.
Audio stays local
Recordings are turned into text on your device and are not written to disk afterwards.
You can delete everything
History and stats live in plain files in your user folder. Clear them from the app at any time.
Mac & iPhone
Same idea, two devices
The Mac app is ready to use. The iPhone keyboard is being built with the same rules: on device, no account.
Orbly for Mac
AvailableA menu bar app. Hold Fn anywhere in macOS, speak, and the text appears at the cursor. Dashboard with stats and history, five interface languages, automatic updates.
- Runs in the menu bar, no window in the way
- Local Whisper engine or your own server
- Overlay with live waveform, four styles
- macOS 14 or newer, Apple Silicon and Intel
Orbly for iPhone
In developmentA dictation keyboard. Pick Orbly in any app, hold the orb, speak, let go. Whisper runs on the phone itself, so nothing leaves the device.
- Custom keyboard, works in every app
- Speech recognition on device, no server
- Small quantised models, made for the keyboard memory limit
- iPhone with iOS 17 or newer
FAQ
Questions people ask first
Does Orbly need an internet connection?
No. Speech recognition runs on your device. The only network requests Orbly makes are the update check and, if you enable it, your own whisper server in your network.
Which permissions does macOS ask for?
Two. Microphone, for recording. Accessibility, so Orbly can press Cmd+V for you and read the Fn key. Without Accessibility the text only lands in the clipboard.
Why do I have to change the Fn key setting?
By default macOS opens Emoji or its own dictation on Fn. Set System Settings, Keyboard, Press Fn key for, to No action once and the key is free for Orbly.
How accurate is it?
It uses Whisper, the same model family behind most current dictation tools. Quality depends on the model size you load. Larger models are more accurate and need more memory.
What does Orbly cost?
Nothing. Orbly is free and stays free. There is no subscription, no trial and no license key. The source code is public under the AGPL v3 licence, so anyone can read what the app does. If it saves you time, you can leave a tip on Ko-fi.
Is Orbly open source?
Yes. The full macOS app is on GitHub under the AGPL v3 licence. You can read the code, build it yourself and check that the audio really never leaves your Mac.
How is this different from the dictation built into macOS?
Three things. Orbly uses Whisper, which handles long sentences, punctuation and mixed languages better. It works fully offline, including with the larger models. And it puts the text straight into whatever field your cursor is in, instead of only into apps Apple supports.
Which languages does Orbly understand?
Whisper recognises around 100 languages and detects the spoken one automatically, or you pin a single one. The app interface itself is available in English, German, Spanish, French and Russian.
Is the iPhone keyboard available?
Not yet. It works, but iOS blocks microphone recording inside keyboard extensions, so dictation runs through the main app and the keyboard inserts the result. TestFlight comes first, then the App Store.
Stop typing what you could just say
Install it, grant two permissions, hold Fn. That is the whole setup.
Version 1.1.3 · macOS 14 or newer, Apple Silicon and Intel. Free, open source under AGPL v3, no subscription.