Changelog
Everything that's shipped, newest first. LocalWispr updates itself, so you're usually already on the latest.
A calmer first run and a menu that matches
- Setup is gentler: the microphone permission prompt no longer appears until the welcome tour has explained it, so you always know which button to click. The tour is clearer about why each permission is needed and that nothing ever leaves your Mac.
- Settings got a home in the menu bar: click the LocalWispr icon and a dark panel drops into place with everything in one scrollable view — dictation, cleanup, vocabulary, history, permissions, license, updates, and support.
- You can now turn automatic update checks on or off, see your version at a glance, report a bug or request a feature, and re-run the setup tour any time.
- Your license is safer: deactivating now asks first and keeps your key on the Mac, so an accidental click is one tap to undo.
Polish that knows what's on your screen — without sending it anywhere
- AI polish can now read the text field you're dictating into — nothing else — so names and terminology come out right: say "send it to win" while Nguyen's email is open, and it types Nguyen. Computed entirely on your Mac, never stored, never sent. Turn it off any time in Settings → Dictation.
- AI polish is now on by default on Macs with Apple Intelligence — it's the product working as advertised, out of the box.
- Password and secure fields are never read, and a strict safety check still rejects any edit that adds words you didn't say.
- Housekeeping: the sample dictionary entry left over from the old LocalFlow name now reads LocalWispr.
Polish that shows its work
- AI polish now runs on nearly every dictation — not just obvious corrections — and warms up while you're still speaking, so cleanup lands in well under a second for a typical sentence.
- Watch edits happen live: while polish runs, the preview shows the AI's changes as they stream in, cross-outs and all. What lands in your document is still a single clean paste.
- Polish can never make you wait: it has a hard time budget (a few seconds at most, scaled to what you said) and falls back to the instant transcript if it runs over.
- Much wider instant formatting: prices ("nineteen dollars" → $19), percentages, spoken email addresses and URLs, version numbers, screen sizes (1920×1080), dates, "new line"/"new paragraph" commands, and repeated-word stutters.
- All of it is deliberately conservative — ambiguous phrases like "walk by the store", "you may first want to…", or "a new line of products" are left exactly as you said them.
Faster, everywhere
- Fixed a delay where the AI model loaded after you finished speaking instead of before.
- The dictation HUD now shows over full-screen apps and videos.
- Text lands reliably in browsers and web apps (Chrome, Arc, Notion, Slack and friends).
- Times, aspect ratios, and fractions come out as you meant them: 3:30 PM, 9:16, 2/3.
Microphone fix
- Fixed the microphone not appearing in Privacy & Security settings on some installs — dictation works again out of the box.
A sturdier free trial
- The 2,000-word free trial count now holds steady across reinstalls and preference resets, so the trial behaves the way you'd expect.
- Under-the-hood reliability fixes.
Try before you buy, and clearer setup
- Your first 2,000 words are now free — dictate real work before deciding whether to buy.
- Friendlier first-run permission and microphone guidance, so you're up and dictating faster.
- A refreshed landing page and site.
Now called LocalWispr
- Fresh name and identity for the app.
- Fully offline licensing — activate your $19 lifetime license without an account or a round-trip to a server.
- The public site went live.
Live update feed
- The app now checks a live update feed at updates.localwispr.com so new versions reach you automatically.
Auto-updates and Apple notarization
- Built-in automatic updates — LocalWispr keeps itself current.
- The app is notarized by Apple, so it installs cleanly with Gatekeeper's blessing. (Includes a follow-up fix that got Developer ID detection and the notarized install flow working end to end.)
See every edit the AI makes
- When AI polish tidies your words, the change flashes in the on-screen HUD with the original crossed out — so nothing is rewritten behind your back.
Smarter cleanup
- Spoken self-corrections that span a sentence now collapse cleanly ("meet at six, actually five" → "meet at five").
- Lists of three or more items automatically become bullet points.
Watch it listen
- A live HUD with a waveform level meter and a rolling transcription preview shows exactly what's being heard as you speak.
Onboarding polish
- Onboarding now points out where LocalWispr lives in your menu bar.
Layout fixes
- Onboarding layout cleanups from a visual review.
Better, more reliable AI polish
- The polish prompt was tuned against a test harness for more consistent cleanup.
- The app now names the model it's using right in the UI.
A guided first run
- A paged onboarding tour walks you through welcome, how privacy works, granting permissions, the model download, and a try-it moment.
First-run clarity
- Clearer first-launch visibility, plus a guardrail that keeps AI polish focused on cleaning up your words.
Plays nicely with others
- LocalWispr now detects other keyboard-watching apps (like Willow and Perplexity) in Settings, so conflicting hotkeys are easy to spot.
Hello, LocalWispr
- Fully on-device push-to-talk dictation for macOS: hold a key, speak, release, and the text lands at your cursor in any app.
- On-device AI polish, a Settings window, hands-free mode, snippets, dictation history, a personal vocabulary, and app-aware tone.
- 25 languages, auto-detected — all running on your Mac's Neural Engine, with nothing uploaded.