SnailText
EN
Pricing How it works Blog About Download for Mac For Windows
Mac & Windows On your device · No cloud · 99 languages

Offline speech recognition —
speech to text on your device.

Download for Mac Or for Windows →
cursor.txt
Speaking…
▍
Done

Beta · Pro

AI dictation, on your machine.

After your words are transcribed, a local LLM cleans them up — no API key, no cloud call, nothing uploaded. Three things it can do today.

  • Clean-up & correction

    Fixes typos, drops filler words, and restores brand names and code terms — tuned to the kind of text you write.

    You said

    so umm i pushed the fix to githab and the the latency droped on postgress

    You get

    So I pushed the fix to GitHub, and the latency dropped on Postgres.

  • Translation

    Speak in your native language and get the text in another — translated locally on your computer, the moment you finish.

    You said EN

    Hi, I'm sending over the quarterly report — take a look when you get a chance.

    You get ES

    Hola, te envío el informe trimestral. Échale un vistazo cuando puedas.

  • Style & tone

    Turn casual speech into the register you need — professional, formal, or technical — without rewriting it yourself.

    You said

    hey can you fix this asap its kinda urgent sorry

    You get

    Could you address this when you have a moment? It is fairly time-sensitive.

Workflow

Voice to text offline — in four steps.

No browser extension, no app integration. Download once, then one hotkey and one paste destination — your cursor.

  1. 01

    Install

    Download and install SnailText. The model downloads once — then everything runs offline.

  2. 02

    Press

    Hit the global hotkey. The pill at the bottom of your screen wakes up.

    ⌥ Space
  3. 03

    Speak

    Talk like you would to a colleague. Whisper handles punctuation and silence.

  4. 04

    Paste

    Hit the hotkey again. Words land at your cursor, in whichever app you were in.

See the full walkthrough

Speed

Speaking is up to 4× faster than typing.

Watch the same prompt land in two ways. The keyboard takes its time. Your voice doesn't.

Speaking
target.txt
Done

  1. Press

  2. Speak

  3. Recognise

  4. Paste

Typing
target.txt
▍

Same prompt, two paths. An extra hour back, every working day.

Universality

Works in any text field.

No plugins, no app-specific integrations. SnailText pastes the same way you would — ⌘V — anywhere your keyboard works.

Cursor · VS Code · Windsurf · Claude Code · ChatGPT · Claude.ai · Slack · Notion · Linear · Gmail · Word · Telegram · Discord · Figma · Obsidian · Substack · Google Docs · Terminal · Cursor · VS Code · Windsurf · Claude Code · ChatGPT · Claude.ai · Slack · Notion · Linear · Gmail · Word · Telegram · Discord · Figma · Obsidian · Substack · Google Docs · Terminal ·

Built for

The way you actually work.

Why people pick it

Offline speech recognition that actually works.

01 — Privacy

Audio never leaves your machine.

Whisper runs locally. Speech is processed in RAM and discarded the moment we have your text. Nothing on disk, nothing on a server. No BAA, no GDPR transfer assessment needed.

02 — Speed

Under 2 seconds on GPU. Real-time on CPU.

GPU mode via Vulkan (Windows) or Metal (Mac) transcribes a 10-second phrase in under 2 seconds. No GPU? The free Tiny and Base models finish in 1–3 seconds on CPU — fast enough to keep up with your thinking.

03 — Local AI

LLM correction runs on your device too.

Pro includes Gemma running locally — no API key, no subscription to OpenAI. It fixes transcription errors and formats code identifiers (snake_case, camelCase) after you speak. Everything stays on your machine.

04 — Cross-platform

Same speed on Windows and Mac.

Most desktop dictation apps treat Windows as an afterthought. SnailText is built equal for both — same hotkey, same UI, same models. One Pro plan covers three devices.

Pricing

Two tiers. No surprises.

The free tier is unlimited and covers the everyday case. Pro is for the larger local models and the rare edge case where accuracy matters.

Free

$0 always
  • Compact local models
  • System-wide hotkey
  • Unlimited dictation
  • Searchable history
  • No account needed

Pro

$7.49 / month

$89 billed yearly

  • Everything in Free
  • Advanced local models — higher accuracy
  • Faster inference for long-form
  • Custom dictionary & snippets — auto-replace
  • 3 devices on one subscription
  • 30-day refund, cancel any time
See full comparison Cancel any time. Local data stays.

Early access

From people who use it daily.

"I switched from Wispr Flow when I realized I was paying $15/mo to send my company's code review comments to a third party. Same speed locally, plus my work Windows ThinkPad and home M2 Air share one license."
A

Alex

Backend Engineer · Early access feedback

"I draft long-form on the SnailText pill more than I type now. The trick: I added 40 names to the custom dictionary so it never butchers my characters' names again."
M

Maya

Freelance Writer · Early access

"I'm not a writer, but I dictate Cursor prompts. SnailText feeds Cursor a 300-word context in 20 seconds. I'd be at 60 seconds typing."
D

Daniyar

Solo Founder · Early access

FAQ

Quick answers.

Unlimited. No watermark, no monthly word limit, no trial timer. You can use the two smallest Whisper models for as long as you want — they cover most everyday dictation.

No. SnailText runs Whisper locally on your machine. Audio is processed in RAM and discarded — nothing gets uploaded, nothing gets logged on a server. You can verify it in your browser/network tab.

Yes. The two free models run on a regular CPU at 1–3 seconds for short phrases. A GPU makes the bigger Pro models faster, not the small ones. We auto-detect Vulkan on Windows and Metal on Mac.

SnailText supports 13 languages out of the box: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. More can be added on request.

Yes, one click in your account. You drop back to the free tier, your local data stays, and the bigger models become unavailable until you resubscribe.

More questions? Read the full FAQ

Go deeper

More on local voice typing

Dictation for Mac

How local Whisper runs on Apple Silicon, what Apple Dictation can and cannot do, and why the M-series GPU changes the math.

Offline dictation

Why "offline" is an architectural question, not a checkbox. Plus GDPR, HIPAA, and the four apps that actually run on-device.

Stop waiting

Stop being a snail.

No account. About thirty seconds to install. Then a hotkey for the rest of your life.

Download for Mac Or for Windows →

⌥ Space — that's the only thing you need to remember.