Yap: Open-source, on-device voice dictation for macOS using native APIs

Introduction to Yap

Yap is a new open-source voice dictation application for macOS, developed by Frigade. It provides fast, on-device speech-to-text functionality, allowing users to dictate text directly into any application. The tool operates from the menu bar and is activated via a customizable keyboard shortcut.

Leveraging Native macOS APIs

A key feature of Yap is its utilization of macOS 26's new SpeechAnalyzer and SpeechTranscriber APIs. This design means Yap does not carry its own speech model, eliminating the need for large downloads and reducing memory footprint. All audio processing and transcription occur locally on the user's machine, without requiring an account, API key, or sending audio data off-device.

Addressing Common Dictation Tool Challenges

Yap aims to resolve several issues prevalent in existing macOS voice-to-text tools. Many alternatives either require payment, necessitate downloading large models that consume significant RAM and perform poorly on older or Intel Macs, or are built on resource-intensive frameworks like Electron. Some also lack transparency regarding data privacy due to being closed-source. Yap's approach avoids these drawbacks by relying on the OS-managed models.

Performance and Accessibility

The application offers real-time transcription, with text appearing as the user speaks. Benchmarks indicate that Apple's underlying model, used by Yap, achieves a 2.12% word error rate on clean audio and 4.56% on noisy audio, outperforming some other models. Yap is available for installation via Homebrew or by downloading a .dmg file, with released builds being signed and notarized for macOS compatibility.