Flit is out. It is a private dictation app for Mac, and today you can download it, try it for seven days, and buy it.
Hold a key, talk, let go. Finished, formatted text lands in whatever app you are in, about 0.7 seconds after you release the key. Nothing you say leaves your Mac. Not the audio, not the text, not what is on your screen.
What a private dictation app means
Every dictation app runs a speech model. The question is where. The fast, polished tools stream your voice to a server, run the model there, and send text back, on a subscription. Some send a screenshot of your screen along with the audio so the reply can match the thread. The private tools run the model on your Mac and make you wait: you let go of the key and a model chews through the whole recording before a word appears.
Flit is the second kind without the wait. Recognition, formatting, the dictionary, your history, and the optional reading of the field you are typing into all happen on your Mac. There is no server, so there is no account, no telemetry, and no copy of your words anywhere but your own disk. On-device processing is the whole design, not a privacy setting.
How it works
Flit runs the speech model on your Mac and feeds it audio while you speak, so the text is being written mid-sentence rather than after you stop. When you release the key there is almost nothing left to do, which is where the 0.7 seconds comes from. Set formatting to Clean and it is about 0.15.
A small formatting model, also on your Mac, then turns the transcript into writing: fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and capitals fixed, times and prices and emails written properly, and the tone matched to the app you are in. Casual in Messages, professional in Mail, your exact words in the terminal.
Anything with one correct answer is not left to the model. Clock times, spoken punctuation, your personal dictionary, snippets, and the file names in your open project are handled by fixed rules that produce the same result every time. The model gets the judgment calls, and if it drops a word you said, Flit throws its answer away and keeps the plain transcript. Dictation can never break.
What is in 1.0
- Types into every app on your Mac. Mail, Messages, Slack, Notes, Notion, Chrome, Cursor, Terminal, and anything else with a cursor, including browser and Electron apps, where most dictation tools give up.
- 99 languages, 25 of them transcribed live as you speak. Flit picks the language from the first seconds, so switching mid-thought needs no setting. Translation is there too, off by default: speak German, write English.
- More than 60 spoken commands and 115 emoji by name. “Open paren”, “dash dash force”, “new paragraph”, “rocket emoji”, every one resolved by a rule, so the same phrase gives the same character every time. The full list is public.
- A personal dictionary that asks first. Fix a word by hand and Flit offers to remember it. Nothing is learned without your yes, and known mishearings of each term are repaired automatically.
- Developer mode. Dictating into an editor or terminal, Flit reads the file and symbol names in your open project, locally, so “open user auth service dot swift” comes out as UserAuthService.swift. Terminals and editors are always verbatim: a shell command is never reworded.
- Per-app tone, with your own rule per app if the default is wrong.
- Snippets. Say “insert my scheduling link” and the link is typed, exactly as you saved it.
- Edit by voice. Select text anywhere, hold the key, say “make this shorter”. Command Z undoes it.
- Three ways to start. Hold a key, tap to lock recording on, or go hands-free and let it start when you speak. Esc cancels any of them and the audio is deleted.
- Live words in the notch, Dynamic Island style, or in a floating pill in any corner.
- A History tab that counts the words you have dictated and the typing time you got back, computed on your Mac, with no streaks and no nagging.
A Wispr Flow alternative that stays on your Mac
If you are coming from Wispr Flow, the interaction is the same: hold a key, speak, release, finished text appears. What changes is where the work happens and what you pay. Flow processes your voice and your screen context on its servers and charges every month. Flit does the same job on your machine for one payment.
If you are coming from Superwhisper, you gain text that streams as you speak, formatting that cannot drift, and a lower price. You give up file transcription, which Flit does not do.
| Flit | Wispr Flow | Superwhisper | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the work happens | Your Mac, always | Cloud | Your Mac |
| Text appears as you speak | Yes | Yes | No |
| Price | $49 once ($19 at launch) | Monthly, forever | $249.99 once |
| Platforms | macOS only | Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android | macOS |
The full comparisons are on their own pages, each checked against the vendor’s published information: Flit vs Wispr Flow, Flit vs Superwhisper, and the private dictation apps for Mac, ranked.
What Flit does not do
It does not transcribe audio files or record meetings. It does not label speakers. It does not run on Windows, iPhone, or Intel Macs. It is built to do live dictation completely rather than four jobs partly, and if your job is one of those four, the comparison pages say which tool to use instead.
Verify the privacy claim yourself
Flit has no account and no telemetry, and no server ever sees your voice or your text. We would rather show you than ask you to believe it: open a network monitor and dictate all day. Not a byte of what you said goes anywhere. The privacy statement lists every connection the app ever makes, so you can check it against what you see.
Pricing
Flit is a one-time purchase. One payment covers two Macs and a year of updates, and when the year is over the app keeps working exactly as it is.
The standing price is $49. For launch, the first 50 licenses are $19, and there is a Lifetime license at $59 for the first 50. The pricing page shows how many are left, counted from real sales rather than a timer. When they are gone, the price goes up.
Teams pay per Mac rather than per person, from $39 a Mac for five or more, with the tiers on the same page.
The trial comes first: seven days, every feature on, no card and no account. If you buy and change your mind, there is a 30-day refund with no questions.
Requirements and download
Flit needs macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. The download is 21 MB, and the models come down on first run, so you choose which ones to keep. Microphone access is required. Accessibility access is what lets Flit type at your cursor; decline it and Flit runs in copy-only mode instead.
What happens next
Launch week is about listening. If it mishears something it should not, or you want a command that does not exist yet, write to [email protected]. Every report so far has turned into a fix, and the changelog shows each one as it ships.
Talk. It’s already written.