Featherweight dictation
Hold fn and talk. Your words land in any app on your Mac, cleaned up and laid out, in about a second. And the whole app weighs 4.6 MB.
Free for 5 days or 3,000 words, then $5 a month. macOS 14 or later.
Hold fn and say something.
Hold to talk
Works everywhere
Every app you type in.
If there's a text cursor, Featherweight Dictation can fill it. It sees which app you're in and lays your words out to fit.
- Messages
- Notes
- Slack
- Gmail
- Google Docs
- Notion
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Linear
- Cursor
- and the rest
Smart formatting
Laid out for where it lands.
Talk the way you talk. In Mail it becomes an email with a greeting and paragraphs, in Slack one clean line, in Notes a tidy list. Prefer your words exactly as said? Switch Smart formatting off in the menu.
Laid out to fit
Hey Priya, Just checking in on the launch deck. Can you send it by 5 today? Thanks, Rohit
Sounds good, see you at the standup.
Groceries 1. Oat milk 2. Eggs 3. Coffee beans
One key
Hold, talk, let go.
fn by default, or right Option or right Command if you'd rather. Nothing to click, no window to open: Featherweight Dictation waits in the menu bar until you hold the key.
Hold any one
Fast
Let go, and it's there.
Short takes land in about a second. Longer ones, laid out as an email or a list, take two or three. Nothing loads and nothing warms up on your Mac.
A short take
- You let go 0.0 s
- Your words are heard about 0.4 s
- The text is typed about 1 s
Languages
Speaks your language.
Featherweight Dictation listens in the language your Mac is set to. Most major languages work, punctuation and all.
Your Mac's language
Private
Your words stay yours.
Your audio and your words are never stored. We keep counts and timings to run your plan, and that's all. How we handle data
What a dictation leaves behind
- Seconds of speech 3.8
- Words 12
- Time to text 1.0 s
Never kept
- Your audio
- Your words
The weigh-in
Heavyweights, meet a featherweight.
There are plenty of dictation apps, and some of them are very good. A few carry a whole web browser inside them. Others are built to run speech models on your Mac, which can add gigabytes. Even the lean ones weigh over a hundred megabytes. Featherweight Dictation is under five.
Size on your Mac
Each app as installed. The others are 25 to 130 times bigger.
31 MBof memory while it waits
0%CPU while it waits
1process. No helpers, no browser
3.6 MBdownload, Apple silicon and Intel
Measured on October 1, 2026 on a MacBook with Apple silicon (macOS 26), from each app's own download, without opening it. Electron apps ship a copy of the Chromium browser. “+ models” means speech models download separately (75 MB to about 3 GB each, by the makers' own lists) and aren't counted here. Featherweight Dictation's memory and CPU are Activity Monitor's figures with the app at rest.
See every number
| App | Version | Download | On disk | Built on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Featherweight Dictation | 0.3.0 | 3.6 MB | 4.6 MB | native, Rust |
| Aqua Voice | 0.20.10 | 260 MB | 596 MB | Electron |
| Wispr Flow | 1.6.1021 | 303 MB | 535 MB | Electron |
| MacWhisper | 15.3 | 168 MB | 266 MB | native + models |
| Superwhisper | 2.18.5 | 68 MB | 200 MB | native + models |
| Willow Voice | 2.5.1 | 84 MB | 121 MB | native |
| VoiceInk | 2.21 | 51 MB | 116 MB | native + models |
Pick a bigger app if you want
- to edit and command your Mac by voice
- meeting notes and transcripts
- modes, profiles and a lot of settings
Pick Featherweight Dictation if you want
- your words typed where you are, in about a second
- a Mac that stays cool, quiet and quick
- one key, one job, $5 a month
How it works
Three steps. No learning curve.
Hold fn
In any app, wherever your cursor is.
Talk
Say it the way you'd say it. Ums and do-overs are fine.
Let go
Your words land, punctuated and laid out for that app.
One price
$5 a month
Unlimited dictation, on up to 7 Macs.
- Free for 5 days or 3,000 words, whichever comes first. No card.
- Your audio and your words are never stored.
- Cancel any time, from your account.
Questions
Good questions.
How does the free trial work?
You get 5 days or 3,000 words, whichever comes first, starting the first time you sign in from a Mac. No card needed. Each Mac gets one trial.
Do you keep my recordings or what I say?
No. Your audio and your words are never stored. We keep counts and timings, such as how long you spoke and how many words came out, to run your plan. The Privacy Policy has the details.
Which apps does it work in?
Any app where you can type: Mail, Slack, Notes, Messages, your browser, Docs, Notion, ChatGPT and the rest. If there's a text cursor, Featherweight Dictation can fill it.
Which key do I hold?
fn (the 🌐 key) by default. You can switch to right Option or right Command in Featherweight Dictation's menu.
Does it work offline?
No. Your speech is turned into text on our servers, so you need an internet connection. That's also why the app on your Mac can stay so small.