# How to set up Flit on your Mac Canonical page: https://flit.fyi/setup > Set up Flit on your Mac in five minutes: install it, allow microphone and accessibility, stop the Fn key opening the emoji picker, and pick a speech engine. Five minutes to your first dictation. [Download Flit 1.7.2](https://statics.fore.studio/flit/downloads/Flit-1.7.2.dmg) 37 MB · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon ## Install Flit 1. Open Flit-1.7.2.dmg from your Downloads folder. 2. Drag the Flit icon into the Applications folder. 3. Open Flit from Applications. The first time, macOS asks whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet. Click Open. Flit lives in the menu bar as a small bird icon, not in the Dock. A welcome window walks you through the next steps. ## Allow microphone and accessibility Flit asks for two macOS permissions. Click Grant Access on each card in the welcome window. ### Microphone So Flit can hear you. Audio is transcribed on your Mac and never sent anywhere. ### Accessibility So Flit can see the Fn key and type at your cursor. Without it, the Fn key does nothing and text only goes to your clipboard. Accessibility opens System Settings instead of a pop-up. Go to **Privacy & Security → Accessibility** and switch Flit on. If Flit is not in the list, click the plus button and add it from Applications. The welcome window notices within a second. ## Set up the Fn (🌐) key You dictate by holding the Fn key, the one marked 🌐 on newer Mac keyboards. But macOS uses that same key to open the emoji picker, so until you change one setting, holding Fn opens emojis as well as Flit. 1. Open **System Settings → Keyboard**. In Flit, Settings → Keyboard has an Open Keyboard Settings button that takes you there. 2. Find **“Press 🌐 key to”**. 3. Change it to **“Do Nothing”**. You keep the emoji picker on Fn-E. [What each choice in that menu does](https://flit.fyi/globe-key-opens-emoji-picker-mac). ### Is Apple Dictation on too? In the same Keyboard settings, under Dictation, check the shortcut. If it uses the 🌐 key, choose a different shortcut or turn Apple Dictation off, so the two do not start together. ### Rather not use Fn? Open Flit Settings → Keyboard, set Activation key to Custom shortcut, and press the combination you want. It needs Command, Control or Option. The default is ⌥ Space. ## Pick your languages and voice model The voice model turns what you say into words, and every one runs entirely on your Mac. The welcome window asks which languages you dictate in, then recommends the model that serves them best on your Mac and downloads it right there. You only need one, and you can change it any time in Settings → Models. ### What Flit recommends - English only: Parakeet Ultra. Your words appear while you speak, and it is a quarter the size of Qwen3-ASR, which scores a little better in English. - German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Greek, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese: Cohere Transcribe. The most accurate for those languages. On a Mac with less than 16 GB of memory, Flit picks Parakeet Ultra instead where it covers them. - Any other of Qwen3-ASR’s 30, like Hindi, Turkish, Thai or Indonesian: Qwen3-ASR. The 1.7B model on a Mac with 16 GB or more, the 0.6B below that. It detects which language you are speaking. - Anything else, like Tamil, Bengali, Urdu or Swahili: Omnilingual ASR. It covers more than 1,600 languages. It writes plain words, and Flit’s formatting adds the punctuation. ### See every voice model #### Parakeet Ultra (Fastest) 595 MB · English and 24 European languages Your words appear while you speak. What Flit recommends for English. #### Cohere Transcribe (Best for Europe) 1.6 GB · 14 languages The most accurate for German, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch, with nine more. Text appears when you stop. #### Qwen3-ASR 1.7B (Detects language) 2.3 GB · 30 languages The most accurate for English, and it works out which of its languages you are speaking. #### Qwen3-ASR 0.6B 680 MB · 30 languages The same 30 languages in a small download, strongest in English and Chinese. #### Voxtral Realtime 4B (Live, 13 languages) 2.8 GB · 13, including Hindi, Arabic, Japanese and Korean Your words appear while you speak, punctuation included. Best on a Mac with 16 GB or more. #### Omnilingual ASR 3B (1,600+ languages) 1.8 GB · More than 1,600 For languages no other model covers, such as Tamil, Bengali and Urdu. Flit adds the punctuation. #### Parakeet V3 496 MB · English and 24 European languages The model Parakeet Ultra was trained from. Your words appear while you speak. #### Nemotron 3.5 (Streaming) 670 MB · 8, including Chinese and Japanese True streaming: words land while you speak. #### Parakeet Unified (English, live) 570 MB · English NVIDIA's newest English model. Your words appear while you speak. #### Apple Speech (Built in) macOS 26 or later · Your Mac’s languages Nothing to download, and your words appear while you speak. **Whisper,** in four sizes from 75 MB to 1.6 GB, covers 99 languages, and works on any Mac. Its text appears when you stop speaking. **Dictate in more than one language?** Add each one and Flit detects the language of every dictation, falling back to the first when a dictation is too short to tell. Detection needs a 75 MB model, downloaded once, and it runs on your Mac like everything else. ## Choose a formatting model The formatting model removes fillers, fixes punctuation and matches the tone of the app you are in. Find it in Settings → Formatting. ### Apple Intelligence Built in The default on macOS 26 or later, with Apple Intelligence turned on in System Settings. ### Qwen3.5 2B ≈1.2 GB For Macs without Apple Intelligence. Download it once and it runs offline. ### Qwen3.5 9B ≈6 GB Best quality, offered on Macs with 32 GB of memory or more. In the same place, choose how much Flit changes: **Verbatim** (your exact words), **Clean** (fillers out, times and numbers fixed) or **Polished** (reads like you wrote it, the default). Dictation always works, even with no formatting model: you get the plain transcript. ## Dictate for the first time 1. Click into any text field: an email, a Slack message, a document. 2. Hold `fn 🌐` and speak. 3. Let go. Your words land at the cursor, cleaned up. ### Long dictation Double-tap Fn to keep recording hands-free. Press it once more to finish. ### Cancel Press Esc while recording and nothing is typed. ### Is it listening? A small panel shows your words live while you speak. You can move it to the notch in Settings → General. ## Activate your license Your 7-day trial starts when you open Flit, with every feature on and no card. When you buy, your key arrives by email. 1. Copy the key from the email. It looks like FLIT-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX. 2. Open Flit Settings → License, or right-click the bird in the menu bar and choose the trial item. 3. Paste it under “Already have a key?” and press Activate. Lost your key? [Find every license for your email](https://apps.fore.studio/manage?lost). Not bought yet? [See pricing](https://flit.fyi/pricing#personal). ## Make it yours Flit works from the first dictation. These make it fit how you write. - [Teach it your words](https://flit.fyi/glossary/personal-dictionary): Paste a list of names and terms at once. Keep correcting a word and Flit asks whether to remember it. - [Say it once, insert the whole thing](https://flit.fyi/glossary/text-expansion): A spoken trigger types a saved block: a scheduling link, an address, a sign-off. - [A tone for every app](https://flit.fyi/glossary/tone-matching): Casual in Messages, professional in Mail, your exact words in Terminal. - [Start from anywhere](https://flit.fyi/features): Start, Stop, Toggle and Cancel Dictation actions in Shortcuts, and a flit://toggle link for launchers. - [Find anything you said](https://flit.fyi/features): Every dictation, with the app it went into. Open one to read it, or play it back if you keep audio. - [Every command you can say](https://flit.fyi/commands): Punctuation, symbols, casing and more than 60 other commands, each resolved by a fixed rule. ## Common setup problems. Something else? Email and a person replies. ### Holding Fn opens the emoji picker. How do I stop it? Open System Settings → Keyboard and set “Press 🌐 key to” to “Do Nothing”. macOS uses the Fn key for the emoji picker by default, so holding it for Flit also opens the picker until you change this. ### I hold Fn and nothing happens. Flit needs Accessibility access to see the Fn key. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and switch Flit on. If it is already on, select Flit, remove it with the minus button, and add it again from Applications. ### The text does not appear where my cursor is. Without Accessibility access, Flit puts the transcript on your clipboard instead of typing it. Press ⌘V to paste it, then grant Accessibility access so it types at your cursor next time. ### Flit says it did not catch any speech. Check the microphone in Flit Settings → General → Microphone, or in the Microphone submenu of the menu bar icon. If you use headphones or a virtual audio device, pick your real microphone there. ### Where did Flit go after I opened it? Flit lives in the menu bar, as a small bird icon at the top right of your screen. It has no Dock icon. Click the bird to open it, or right-click it for Settings. ### Which voice model should I use? The one the welcome window recommends for your languages: Parakeet Ultra for English, Cohere Transcribe for the main European languages and several Asian ones, Qwen3-ASR for 30 languages, or Omnilingual for the more than 1,600 it covers. You only need one, and you can switch any time in Settings → Models. ### Can I dictate in more than one language? Yes. Add each language in the welcome window or in Settings → Models, and Flit detects the language of every dictation. Detection needs a 75 MB model, downloaded once, and it runs on your Mac. ### Can I use a different key instead of Fn? Yes. Open Flit Settings → Keyboard, set Activation key to Custom shortcut, and record a combination with Command, Control or Option. The default custom shortcut is ⌥ Space. ### Something else is wrong. Right-click the bird in the menu bar, choose Copy Diagnostic Report, and paste it into an email to hi@flit.fyi. A person reads every one.