No. Chirp runs 100% on your Mac — every transcription happens locally with Apple Silicon hardware acceleration. Audio and text never leave your device. (Chirp Cloud is a separate, opt-in add-on coming later for syncing across multiple Macs — end-to-end encrypted, your data stays yours either way.)

Solo Mode is for fast dictation — tap a hotkey, speak, and the text appears at your cursor in any Mac app. Tuned for one-shot speed (up to 190× realtime on long-form recordings). Meeting Mode handles longer recordings with automatic speaker labels and timestamps — slower than Solo, faster than uploading to a cloud service, and everything stays on your Mac.

Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or later) running macOS 15 Sequoia or newer. Intel Macs aren't supported — Chirp uses Apple Silicon-specific hardware acceleration for the speed it ships with. Any Apple Silicon Mac (8 GB base or more) has enough RAM for both modes.

Solo dictation is English-only — we use a model built exclusively for English to get the speed and accuracy we ship with. Meeting Mode supports 100 languages (auto-detect or specify). More solo languages may come later.

Only for the initial download and license activation. After that, Chirp works fully offline. Useful for sensitive meetings, on a plane, or anywhere the network is unreliable.

Try it free for 7 days — no credit card, no account. If you buy and change your mind, we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. Just email hello@chirpvoice.com.