Your voice, processed on your Mac
Offline dictation for Mac.
Yap turns speech into text on your Apple Silicon Mac without uploading your audio. After setup, you can dictate offline while your last access check remains valid.
Offline access lasts up to 24 hours after a successful check, and never beyond your free days, trial or paid period. The first launch needs internet.
macOS, Apple Silicon. $6.90 USD/month or $69 USD/year. 3 days free with a free account, no card, then a 10-day trial with a card.
What stays local. What connects.
On your Mac
- Speech recognition processes your recording locally.
- Audio is not uploaded to a transcription service.
- Completed text is saved in local History, where you can copy or delete it.
- Automatic insertion places the result in your active text field without changing your clipboard.
With an internet connection
- Download the app and prepare the speech library and models.
- Open the app for the first time, which starts your 3 free days.
- Start a trial or subscription when you want to keep going: sign in, check out with a card, and connect your Mac.
- Refresh your access with periodic license checks.
- Download app updates when they are available.
Where you insert text matters too: an email, chat, or notes app may sync that text through its own service. Local speech recognition does not change the destination app’s privacy settings. Read our privacy policy for how the app and website handle data.
Before you disconnect
Get ready while you’re online.
A downloaded app alone is not ready for offline dictation. Finish setup, check access, and try a sentence first.
Open the Mac setup guideOpen Yap while you’re online.
Create your free account in the app with your email: your 3 free days start then, with no card. After them, choose Start trial in the app to keep dictating: a 10-day trial on a monthly or yearly plan, with a card. Your Mac stays connected.
Let speech recognition finish preparing.
Grant Microphone and Accessibility permissions. Keep your connection on until Overview shows speech recognition is ready; the models stay cached on your Mac.
Try your usual language and text editor.
Place your cursor in a note, hold Fn, say a sentence, and release. For hands-free recording, press Space while holding Fn, then press Fn again to finish. Check both the transcript and insertion before you leave.
Check access before going offline.
A successful access check provides up to 24 hours of access. If your free days, trial or paid period end sooner, access ends then. Reconnect when a new check is needed.
Before you choose.
- Can I use it indefinitely without internet?
- No. Recognition is local, but new dictation needs valid access: your free days, a trial or a subscription. Yap is not suitable for a permanently disconnected Mac. The offline window is up to 24 hours from the last successful check, not from the moment you lose Wi-Fi.
- What happens to my words when access expires?
- New dictation pauses. An active dictation can finish, and your existing local History remains readable, copyable, and deletable.
- Can I try local recognition before installing?
- Yes. The website voice demo downloads a smaller model and processes audio in your browser. Demo audio and text stay in the tab. It is a separate preview, so its speed and recognition quality do not represent the full Mac app.
From the library
Mac Dictation: How to Dictate and Control a Mac by Voice
Every Mac has free, built-in Dictation: turn it on once in System Settings > Keyboard, press the Microphone key or your shortcut in any text field and speak, and on Apple silicon Macs 48 of its 63 language variants can be processed on the Mac itself. Voice Control adds hands-free commands for the whole computer. When dictation fails, the cause is one of five things: the shortcut, the microphone, the language, Voice Control or the app you are typing in; when you need long, specialist or AI-formatted text, a dedicated Mac dictation app is the next step.