Blitztext

Speak. Text. Done.
Dictation for your Mac that runs entirely on your Mac.

Download for macOS · blitztext.de · Build it yourself

Hold a shortcut, speak, let go. Blitztext turns your speech into text and pastes it where your cursor is. Speech recognition runs on your Mac, the writing modes use Apple Intelligence on your Mac. No account, no server, no audio leaving the device.

Why Blitztext?

• Private: your voice never leaves your Mac. No account, no backend, no telemetry.
• Native: a small menu bar app in Swift, made for macOS, fast on Apple silicon.
• More than dictation: four modes turn rough speech into clean text, a calm message or a message with emojis.
• Free and open: MIT licensed. Use it, learn from it, build on it.

How It Works

1. Hold a shortcut, for example fn + Shift.
2. Speak in any language your model knows.
3. Let go. Blitztext transcribes on your Mac with Parakeet or Whisper.
4. Done. The text appears at your cursor, fitted to the text around it. Your clipboard is restored afterwards.

Modes

| Mode | Shortcut | What happens | |---|---|---| | Blitztext | fn + Shift | Speech to exact text | | Blitztext+ | fn + Control | Speech to clean written text | | Blitztext $%&! | fn + Option | Frustrated speech to a calm, effective message | | Blitztext :) | fn + Cmd | Text with fitting emojis |

Keyboards without fn: set your own shortcut per mode in the settings.

Features

• Local speech recognition: Parakeet Ultra (fast, 25 European languages) or OpenAI Whisper via WhisperKit (about 100 languages). Both detect the spoken language.
• Local writing modes: Blitztext+, $%&! and :) run with Apple Intelligence on your Mac (macOS 26). Optionally bring your own model provider: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Mistral, OpenRouter, or a local server such as Ollama or LM Studio.
• Fits where you type: spaces and capitals follow the text around your cursor, also mid-sentence. Password fields are never read.
• Mode per app or website: Gmail always Blitztext+, Slack with emojis, everything else word for word.
• Sound off while recording: a podcast or music is muted while you speak and back right after.
• Voice memos and WhatsApp voice messages: drop an audio file on Blitztext and get the text, optionally with paragraphs.
• Dictionary: names and terms spelled your way, fixed replacements ("n acht n" becomes "n8n").
• History: recent results, encrypted and stored only on your Mac.
• Updates in the app: Blitztext offers new versions from this repository's releases, signed and notarized by Apple.

Screenshots

| | | |---|---| | | | | Speech recognition and AI modes on your Mac | How Blitztext works, shortcuts, sound off while recording |

The app is in German for now.

Install

1. Open the latest release, download the ZIP under "Assets", unpack it and move Blitztext.app to Applications.
2. Open Blitztext. It lives in the menu bar.
3. Allow Microphone and Accessibility (needed to paste into other apps).
4. In the settings (Modelle), load a local speech model once. Parakeet Ultra is recommended on Apple silicon, about 630 MB.
5. Hold fn + Shift, speak, let go.

Privacy

Speech recognition:  your Mac (Parakeet or Whisper, Core ML / Neural Engine)
Writing modes:       your Mac (Apple Intelligence)
                     or, if you add one, your own model provider with your own API key
Model download:      Hugging Face, once per model
Update check:        GitHub releases of this repository (can be turned off)

Blitztext has no backend and collects no data. Details in docs/privacy.md.

Known Limitations

• fn shortcuts only work on Apple keyboards. Set your own shortcut for other keyboards.
• Paste stops after an update or a rebuild: open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, remove the old Blitztext entry, add the current app and restart it.
• First dictation after a macOS update can take a few minutes while macOS prepares the model for the Neural Engine. Blitztext shows a hint; keep it running.
• Whisper on silence sometimes invents phrases like "Thank you." Blitztext filters the known ones.
• Macs managed with Jamf: in-app updates are off on the whole Mac, also for a copy you installed yourself. There, your device management handles updates.

Build It Yourself

You need Xcode 26 or newer (for the Apple Intelligence APIs) and XcodeGen (brew install xcodegen).

git clone https://github.com/cmagnussen/blitztext-app.git
cd blitztext-app
./build.sh --install --run

build.sh creates an ad-hoc signed app for your own Mac. If you publish a fork, use your own bundle identifier, name and icon (see TRADEMARKS.md) and sign it with your own Developer ID.

BlitztextMac/        macOS menu bar app (SwiftUI, AppKit)
  App/               app state and lifecycle
  Features/          workflows, menu bar, settings, audio files, release notes
  Services/          recording, hotkeys, local transcription, paste, history, updates
  Views/             shared UI pieces
  Tests/             unit tests: post-processing, cursor fit, paragraphs, filters
BlitztextShared/     code shared with the (not yet public) iOS app
  AI/                model providers, Apple Intelligence rewriting, mode prompts
  Audio/             audio file conversion
  Transcription/     Whisper call and filter for invented text
  Design/            design tokens, Public Sans
  Licenses/          bundled third-party licenses
build.sh             local build script

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md, and see ROADMAP.md for what comes next.

Thanks to everyone whose pull requests shaped this version, among them automatic paragraphs (#21), build fixes (#5, #16) and a cancellation fix (#10).

From the Community

Independent projects built on the Blitztext idea. They are not maintained or reviewed by Blackboat.

• Linux (KDE/Wayland): TimInTech/blitztext-linux
• Windows with voice notes: danielstefanmueller/Blitznotiz
• Windows (.NET 8): echobrain-de/blitztext
• Fork with history, meetings and a team server: mschnitzler-creator/blitztext-app-v2

Acknowledgments

• FluidAudio, Moondream and NVIDIA for Parakeet Ultra on Core ML
• WhisperKit by Argmax and OpenAI for Whisper
• Sparkle for updates
• Community contributors who send fixes and ideas
• The open-source dictation community, whose work inspired parts of Blitztext

License

MIT License, see LICENSE. Free and open source, built and maintained by Blackboat alongside our client work, without warranty and without guaranteed support.

The Blitztext name, logo, icon and brand assets are not open source. Forks and redistributions must use their own branding and must not imply endorsement by Blackboat, see TRADEMARKS.md.

Legal / Impressum & Datenschutz

The signed release builds and the website blitztext.de are published by Blackboat Internet GmbH.

• Impressum: https://www.blackboat.com/impressum
• Datenschutz / Privacy: https://www.blackboat.com/datenschutz