What is the best free voice to text app for Mac?

For quick sentences, Apple Dictation is already on your Mac and costs nothing. For long messages, emails and prompts where you want filler words removed and punctuation fixed, a hold-to-talk app with AI cleanup, such as Toolbay Flow, saves more editing.

Is there a free Wispr Flow for Mac?

Wispr Flow's free plan stops at 2,000 words a week on desktop. Toolbay Flow is a free, open-source app that works the same way (hold Fn, talk, let go) with no word limit, and runs on your Mac instead of the cloud.

Does Apple Dictation have a time limit?

Apple's support page says you can dictate text of any length without a timeout, but Dictation stops automatically when no speech is detected for 30 seconds.

Which permissions does a dictation app need on Mac?

Microphone, to hear you, and Accessibility, to paste text into other apps. Toolbay Flow asks for only those two.

Free voice to text on a Mac: what actually works

By the Toolbay team · Updated October 26, 2026

Every Mac has free dictation built in. What it doesn't do is clean up what you say: the “um”s, the restarts, the “no wait, Thursday”. That cleanup is what paid apps like Wispr Flow sell. Below are the free options, from built in to open source, and which to pick.

The free options at a glance

Checked October 26, 2026. GitHub stars rounded.
Feature	Apple Dictation	Toolbay Flow	Handy	VoiceInk
Price	Free, built in	Free	Free	Source is free; prebuilt app sold with a trial
Start	Microphone key or your shortcut	Hold Fn, talk, let go	Shortcut (Cmd+Shift+D by default)	Shortcut
AI cleanup of fillers and corrections	No (spelling and punctuation on newer Macs)	Yes, local model	Optional post-processing	Yes
Runs on your Mac	Varies by Mac and language	Yes	Yes	Yes
Also on Windows	No	Yes	Yes, and Linux	No
Open source	No	MIT	MIT, ~34,800 stars	GPL-3.0, ~6,900 stars

Apple Dictation: free and already there

Turn it on in System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation, then press the Microphone key, your chosen shortcut, or Edit › Start Dictation. Apple says you can dictate any length of text, and it stops after 30 seconds of silence. With Apple Intelligence on newer Macs (M3 or later, 12 GB of memory, English) an on-device model improves spelling, punctuation and capitalization.

Good for short messages. You still remove filler words and restarts yourself.

Toolbay Flow: the free Wispr Flow for Mac

Toolbay Flow works like Wispr Flow: hold Fn, talk, let go, and cleaned-up text is pasted where your cursor is. Whisper turns speech into text on your Mac (Metal), and a small local model removes fillers, applies spoken corrections, adds punctuation and formats lists. Fn + Space starts hands-free mode; Fn + Ctrl edits selected text by voice (“make this friendlier”).

The October 26 Mac releases (0.4.8 to 0.4.15) made the Mac setup match Wispr Flow's:

Only two permissions: Microphone and Accessibility.
Fn is held back from macOS, so holding it no longer opens the emoji picker, and it works every time.
Your music isn't lowered when you dictate with AirPods: Flow uses the built-in mic when your default input is a Bluetooth headset.
Permissions survive updates, and Flow resumes where you were after you allow them.

The Mac app is not notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open the installer, macOS asks you to allow it in System Settings › Privacy & Security.

Other open-source Mac dictation apps

Handy is the best-known free option: simple, offline, and on Mac, Windows and Linux. VoiceInk is a Mac-only app whose source is public under the GPL; its developer sells a license for the ready-made app. Our open-source dictation app comparison goes deeper.

Which should you pick?

A few short replies a day: Apple Dictation.
Long emails, docs and AI prompts, and you hit Wispr Flow's limit: Toolbay Flow.
The simplest possible offline app, also on Linux: Handy.

Step-by-step setup for both free routes is in how to dictate on a Mac for free.

Questions people ask

What is the best free voice to text app for Mac?: For quick sentences, Apple Dictation is already on your Mac and costs nothing. For long messages, emails and prompts where you want filler words removed and punctuation fixed, a hold-to-talk app with AI cleanup, such as Toolbay Flow, saves more editing.
Is there a free Wispr Flow for Mac?: Wispr Flow's free plan stops at 2,000 words a week on desktop. Toolbay Flow is a free, open-source app that works the same way (hold Fn, talk, let go) with no word limit, and runs on your Mac instead of the cloud.
Does Apple Dictation have a time limit?: Apple's support page says you can dictate text of any length without a timeout, but Dictation stops automatically when no speech is detected for 30 seconds.
Which permissions does a dictation app need on Mac?: Microphone, to hear you, and Accessibility, to paste text into other apps. Toolbay Flow asks for only those two.

Wispr Flow is a trademark of Wispr. Toolbay's tools are independent open-source projects, inspired by Wispr Flow, and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Wispr.