Onda

macOS · Linux · on-device speech

Dictation that types into your editor, terminal, or chat.

Hold a shortcut, speak, and let go. Onda transcribes what you said and types it where your cursor is. Speech recognition runs on your computer, so your audio stays there.

View releases

Packages for macOS and Linux are on the releases page.

Onda's History page in dark mode, listing transcripts dictated into Ghostty, Visual Studio Code, Slack, and Mail.
The History page keeps each transcript with the app it went to.

What Onda does

The core is shared on macOS and Linux; differences are noted.

  1. 01

    Hold, tap, or both

    Hold the shortcut to talk, tap to start and stop, or let Onda tell a tap from a hold. On a Mac, Right Option or Fn can work alone.

  2. 02

    Speech runs locally

    Parakeet models cover English and 25 European languages. They run on the Neural Engine on a Mac and on the CPU on Linux.

  3. 03

    Live preview

    On a Mac, the overlay shows the transcript while you speak. macOS can also use Apple's built-in speech engine and a Japanese Parakeet model.

  4. 04

    Text goes where the cursor is

    Onda types into the focused app or copies to the clipboard. On a Mac it reads the text before the cursor to fix spacing and capitalization.

  5. 05

    Replacements

    Rules swap phrases the model keeps getting wrong, like “cube cuddle” for kubectl. They run on your machine after each dictation.

  6. 06

    Optional cleanup

    Send the text, never the audio, to OpenRouter or Fireworks with your own key, or to Apple Intelligence on a Mac. It drops filler words and applies “scratch that”.

  7. 07

    Searchable history

    Transcripts stay on your computer for a week, a month, or until you delete them. Search them and copy any one again.

  8. 08

    Commands on Linux

    onda --toggle, --start, --stop, and --paste-last let you bind dictation to any key your desktop allows.