Hold
01
Press and hold Right Option.
No wake word, no toggle, no floating overlay. Murmur listens only while the key is down — the menu bar icon turns amber so you know it's live.
▍ key down
00:00.00 · awaiting audio
v0.4 · Apple Speech & Foundation Models — shipping now
Dictation that actually tells you what happened.
Hold Right Option, speak, release. Murmur transcribes on your Mac, cleans the text, and pastes into whatever app you're already in. When something goes wrong, the menu bar tells you — instead of eating the error.
- Price
- Free
- Account
- None
- Architecture
- Universal binary
- Requires
- macOS 14+
Where it works
Anywhere a macOS text field accepts a paste. Murmur uses Accessibility — not per-app integrations — so it just shows up.
tested in 40+ apps
- Slack
- Notion
- Linear
- Gmail
- Messages
- VS Code
- Xcode
- Safari
- Figma
- Obsidian
- Terminal
- ChatGPT
- …and the rest of your menu bar.
The loop
Four moments, end to end.
From key-down to text-in-target-app, the median round-trip is under a second on Apple Silicon. Every step is visible — you can see exactly where time goes.
~0.4smedian round-trip
- Speak02
Say what you would have typed.
Audio captures locally to a rolling buffer. Apple Silicon chews through it in real time; even the Intel path keeps up with normal speech.
▍ recording00:01.42 · 22kHz mono - Release03
Lift your finger. Murmur takes over.
WhisperKit (or Groq, your call) transcribes. Apple Intelligence cleans filler, casing, and punctuation — or skips cleanup if you want the raw take.
whisperkit · small.en → 312msapple intelligence → 84ms - Pasted04
Text lands in the app you were already in.
No new window, no copy-paste shuffle. The active text field receives the cleaned transcript, the menu bar resets, and you keep going.
✓ inserted into Messages.appready · 0.4s end-to-end
What it does
Six things, no surprises.
Every Murmur feature exists because the alternative was annoying. No upsells, no “pro” tier, no telemetry hiding behind a privacy policy.
- 01Hotkey
Push-to-talk, not always-on.
Right Option by default — rebind to anything. Your mic is silent unless the key is down. No wake word, no constant listening, no overlay following your cursor.
- 02Local option
Run with zero outbound packets.
Pick WhisperKit on-device for transcription and Apple Intelligence for cleanup, and Murmur makes no network calls. The fully-local path is a checkbox, not a research project.
- 03Provider routing
Mix providers without losing config.
Speech-to-text and cleanup are independent. WhisperKit + Apple Intelligence today, Groq + Llama-3.1 tomorrow. Switch in Settings — your hotkey, history, and overrides survive.
- 04Cleanup
Strip filler. Keep your voice.
Cleanup pulls the ums and uhs, fixes casing, and respects punctuation cues. Or skip it entirely — raw transcripts are one toggle away.
- 05Visible state
If something failed, you'll know.
The menu bar shows recording, transcribing, pasting — and surfaces the actual error when a provider misbehaves, instead of silently dropping the take.
- 06Speed
Sub-second on the common path.
Groq returns in roughly 300ms for typical phrases. Local WhisperKit on Apple Silicon is comfortably faster than typing. The end-to-end median sits around 0.4s.
Providers
Pick the setup that fits your trust model.
Four ways to wire it. Speech and cleanup are independent — and if you already pay for ChatGPT or Gemini, Murmur reuses that login instead of asking for another bill.
Fully local
Most privateAir-gapped. Your voice never touches the network.
- Speech
- WhisperKit
- Cleanup
- Apple Intelligence
- Requires
- macOS 15.1+ with Apple Intelligence
Mixed
BalancedLocal speech-to-text, stronger API cleanup when you want it.
- Speech
- WhisperKit
- Cleanup
- Groq · Apple Intelligence
- Requires
- Optional Groq key
API-backed
Fastest setupNo local models to manage — Groq does it all, fast.
- Speech
- Groq
- Cleanup
- Groq
- Requires
- Groq API key
Bring your subscription
Use what you haveReuse a ChatGPT Plus or Gemini Advanced login you're already paying for — no extra API bill.
- Speech
- WhisperKit
- Cleanup
- ChatGPT · Gemini
- Requires
- Codex CLI or Gemini CLI signed in
Privacy
Your voice, your machine.
Pick the fully-local setup and Murmur makes zero network calls. No servers. No accounts. No subscription to cancel in six months.
0
- Servers
- Accounts
- Trackers
- Subscription · $0
- On-device transcription with WhisperKit01
- On-device cleanup with Apple Intelligence02
- No telemetry, no analytics, no tracking03
- API keys live in the macOS Keychain04
- Open source — read the code yourself05
- Your voice never leaves your Mac (when local)06
Pricing
Free. Not “free for now.”
Murmur is open source and shipped as a DMG from GitHub Releases. Bring your own Groq key only if you want to.
This app
Murmur
$0forever
Open source. Yours to keep.
- Unlimited dictation
- Fully local transcription
- Custom hotkeys
- Smart cleanup
- No account required
- Open source
For comparison
Typical dictation app
$10/ month
$120/year. Every year.
- Subscription cancels your workflow
- Cloud-only — your voice leaves your Mac
- Account sign-up required
- Rate limits on fair use
- Closed source black box
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Stop typing
Hold the key. Say what you mean.
Free, open source, and shipped as a single DMG. No account wall. Quit anytime.