Works without internet
Offline dictation for Mac.
Celesa is an offline dictation app for Mac. It hears you and tidies your words with two models that live on your computer, so it works the same with Wi-Fi off and your voice never leaves the room.
What happens when you dictate
- You hold Right Option and speak. Celesa records from your microphone into memory.
- NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 turns the audio into text on your Mac1.
- Qwen 3.5 removes filler words, applies your corrections and matches the app’s tone, also on your Mac2.
- The finished text is pasted at your cursor. The audio is discarded.
What goes online, and when
Celesa uses the internet for exactly two things, and neither includes your voice or text.
- First launch: it downloads its speech and writing models from Hugging Face, about 2 GB, once.
- Updates: it checks a small file on GitHub to see whether a new version exists.
Who offline dictation is for
- Lawyers, clinicians and consultants who can’t send client details to a third-party server.
- Founders and writers drafting things that aren’t public yet.
- Anyone who travels, works on bad Wi-Fi or simply wants their voice kept private.
Test it yourself
Open Celesa, turn off Wi-Fi, and dictate a paragraph into Notes. It works exactly the same. That’s the simplest proof that nothing is going anywhere.
What your Mac needs
A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer), macOS 14 Sonoma or later, and about 2 GB of free disk space for the models.
Questions
Offline dictation, answered
Does Celesa work on a plane?
Yes. Once the models are downloaded, Celesa needs no connection at all, so it works on a plane, on a train or anywhere without signal.
Does Celesa send any data at all?
Celesa never sends what you say or write. It goes online for two things only: downloading its models the first time, and checking GitHub for app updates.
Where is my dictation stored?
Your last 50 dictations are kept as text in a history file in your Mac’s Application Support folder. No audio is saved. You can delete the file at any time.
Is offline dictation slower?
No. Nothing has to travel over the internet, so there is no network delay and no waiting on a busy server.
Turn off Wi-Fi.
Keep talking.
Free for Mac. macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. No account.