Offline Transcription for Mac
Transcribe speech to text without an internet connection. Everything stays on your Mac — private, fast, and reliable.
Key Specs
0 Uploads
Audio never leaves your Mac
Up to 120x RT
Local processing speed
No Internet
Required after setup
Apple Silicon
Hardware acceleration
Why Offline Matters
Three reasons to keep your transcription local
Privacy
Chirp never sends your audio or transcripts to a server for transcription. The voice pipeline runs locally, so no third-party processor receives your recording content.
Speed
No upload time, no server queue, no download wait. Chirp processes audio directly on your Mac with Apple Silicon acceleration at up to 120x realtime — faster than cloud services for most recordings.
Reliability
Works on planes, in remote areas, in secure facilities — anywhere without WiFi. No dependency on external servers that could go down, change pricing, or discontinue service.
Where your words actually live.
A searchable history and a speaker library, all of it inside an app on your Mac.
Just left the standup, remind me to follow up with Marcus about the deploy and grab a room for Thursday's review.
Open any entry to read it back or play the audio.
Bars show how well each voice is known. New voices wait for review.
How Local Transcription Works
A complete on-device voice pipeline built for Apple Silicon
Apple Silicon Acceleration
Every Apple Silicon Mac is purpose-built for on-device machine learning. Chirp uses that hardware acceleration to run its voice engine directly on your device — no GPU server, no cloud round-trip, no external processor.
The Chirp Voice Engine
Chirp's voice engine is downloaded once and stored locally. Transcription, speaker recognition, and the reliability work around them operate as one tested system, with no model catalog or pipeline to configure. No internet connection is needed after setup.
Zero Network Requests
Chirp makes no network requests for transcription. Your audio goes from microphone to the Chirp Voice Engine to text — all within your Mac. You can verify this with any network monitoring tool.
Performance
~5s
10-minute recording
Unlimited
Recording length
0 bytes
Sent to servers
Who Uses Offline Transcription
Privacy-sensitive professionals who need local processing
Journalists
Transcribe interviews and field recordings without exposing sources or sensitive material to cloud services.
Legal Professionals
Attorney-client privilege requires keeping recordings confidential. Chirp processes everything locally with no third-party access.
Healthcare
Patient consultations and medical notes stay on your device. No compliance risk from cloud uploads.
Executives
Strategic discussions and board meetings transcribed without corporate data touching external servers.
Offline Transcription FAQ
Common questions about local, private transcription
Yes. After the initial download and one-time license activation, Chirp works entirely offline. Transcription runs locally on your Mac with Apple Silicon hardware acceleration. No audio or text is ever sent to a server.
Chirp's local transcription runs at up to 120x realtime speed on Apple Silicon, which is faster than most cloud services once you account for upload time. Chirp's on-device voice engine delivers accuracy comparable to leading cloud services, in English. The main advantage is privacy — your audio never leaves your device.
Chirp uses a custom on-device voice pipeline built and extensively tested for Apple Silicon. It handles accents, technical terminology, and natural speech while keeping both dictation and meetings entirely on your Mac.
All transcriptions and audio recordings are stored locally on your Mac in Chirp's Application Support folder. You can configure automatic retention policies for both audio and transcripts. Chirp does not upload or sync that content. If you explicitly connect a cloud AI through MCP, that tool receives only the transcript excerpts you ask it to use.
Yes. Once installed and activated, Chirp works anywhere — on flights, in secure facilities, remote locations, or anywhere without internet access. All processing happens on your Mac's hardware.
Still have questions? Get in touch
Private Transcription, No Compromises
Download Chirp free. All transcription stays on your Mac — always.