On-Device Dictation for Mac: Private, Offline Voice Typing

Q: Does Infina really work with no internet at all?

Yes, for its default mode. Transcription, text cleanup, and hands-free listening all run locally on your Mac, so dictation works fully offline. Only the optional cloud add-on needs a connection.

Q: Is on-device dictation less accurate than cloud dictation?

Cloud models are typically sharper on rare names and jargon, which is what Infina's optional cloud add-on offers. For everyday English speech, on-device accuracy is strong (95%+ for clear speech), and for AI prompting the difference rarely matters.

Q: Isn't Apple's free dictation enough for private dictation?

For casual use it may be. On Apple Silicon Macs, Apple's general text dictation can be processed on-device. Paid tools add speed, app-aware workflows, and in Infina's case hands-free prompting and Mac voice control on top of private dictation.

TL;DR: On-device dictation on a Mac means the speech-to-text model runs on your own hardware. Your audio never leaves your machine, it works offline, and there is nothing on a server to leak, retain, or train on. Infina does this by default: NVIDIA's Parakeet model on the Apple Neural Engine, $99 once, no subscription. And unlike the other on-device apps, it does not chain you to the keyboard: they make you press or hold a key for every dictation, while Infina works hands-free from across the room, just say "type" plus your words, then "send", then switch apps by voice. If privacy is your criterion, the tool to avoid is anything cloud-only.

Infina is our product, so we are biased. But this article is really about an architecture question you should ask of any dictation tool before you speak a single sensitive sentence into it: where does my voice go?

Why on-device matters: your voice is biometric data

Your voiceprint can identify you the way a fingerprint can. And what you say into a dictation app is the raw feed of your working life: client names, unreleased code, health details, messages you would never paste into a random web form.

With cloud dictation, every one of those sentences is uploaded, processed on someone else's servers, and handled under someone else's retention policy. That is not automatically sinister. But it is a standing risk you carry every day, and most people never read the policy they are trusting.

It is not hypothetical either. Wispr Flow's own data controls page states that unless you enable Privacy Mode, your dictation data may be used to train their AI models, and training is on by default. Achieving zero retention requires turning Privacy Mode on and Cloud Sync off.

To their credit, the controls exist. But the default tells you the architecture: the cloud pipeline is the product, and your data feeds it unless you opt out. Their help docs also confirm there is no offline mode at all. No internet, no dictation.

What you get when the model lives on your Mac

Privacy by physics, not by policy. Audio that never leaves your device cannot be retained, subpoenaed, breached, or trained on. There is no switch to remember to flip.
Works offline. Planes, cafés with hostile Wi-Fi, tethered trains, network outages: dictation keeps working, because nothing needed the network in the first place.
No network latency. No round trip to a server before your words land. On modern Apple Silicon, local models are fast enough that the network is pure overhead.
No monthly server bill. Cloud processing costs the vendor money per use, which is why cloud dictation is almost always a subscription. On-device processing costs them nothing recurring, so it can be sold once.

How Infina does on-device dictation on Mac

For a new user on an Apple Silicon Mac with the $99 license, here is exactly where your voice goes: nowhere.

Transcription runs fully on-device. Infina runs NVIDIA's Parakeet TDT 0.6B speech model on the Apple Neural Engine. Your audio never leaves your Mac, and dictation works with no internet connection at all.
Text cleanup is on-device too: fast, rule-based formatting rather than a cloud pass.
Even hands-free listening is local. When hands-free mode is waiting for you to speak, that listening runs on-device, inside the app. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere while it waits.
Privacy mode is ON by default: no transcripts and no audio stored server-side. There is nothing to delete because nothing was kept.

The truthful one-liner: by default, Infina transcribes your speech entirely on your Mac, and your audio never leaves your device.

This is also why Infina is built for people who prompt AI tools all day. You can speak thousands of words of prompts without touching the keyboard, privately, offline, with one $99 purchase that never renews. See pricing for what the one-time license includes.

The trade-offs, stated plainly

On-device has trade-offs, and we would rather you know them before buying:

Base output is raw, not polished. On-device cleanup is fast rule-based formatting, not a rewrite. That is deliberate: Infina is built for people prompting AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor, and AI models do not care about comma placement. When you do want client-ready prose, the $10/month cloud add-on does the LLM cleanup.
The base product is English-only. Other languages require the cloud add-on.
The optional $10/month cloud add-on IS cloud processing, plainly. It sends audio, encrypted, to our cloud AI providers (Together AI and Groq) for sharper transcription and cleanup by large language models, plus multiple languages. It is opt-in, clearly labeled, and cancel-anytime; the app reverts to fully on-device. You choose per trade-off, and the default is local.
Apple Silicon required for the on-device models, and Infina is Mac-only.
One precision note: privacy mode (on by default) stores nothing. If you manually turn it off to keep a dictation history, transcripts are saved to your account. That is your call, not a default.

Honest alternatives for private dictation on a Mac

Infina is not the only way to keep your voice local, and pretending otherwise would blow the credibility this article runs on.

Superwhisper is a local-first dictation app with a solid reputation: on-device and offline capable, with a free tier of small local models and a $249.99 lifetime option (2.5 times Infina's $99). It is a reasonable local-first alternative if you do not need voice control of the Mac itself. Polish is not a reason to leave, though: Infina's $10/month cloud add-on covers polished output, and Infina's lifetime license is $99 versus $249.99. We compare the two directly in Superwhisper vs Infina. And if the local Whisper app you're eyeing is mainly for transcribing recordings rather than live dictation, MacWhisper vs Infina covers that trade-off.

Apple's built-in Dictation is free with your Mac. Per Apple's own documentation, on Apple Silicon Macs general text dictation can be processed on your device rather than sent to Siri servers (Keyboard settings shows this per language; dictation into search boxes still goes to Apple's servers). It is basic, with no app-aware behavior and no voice commands beyond text, but as a private baseline it is underrated. We rank it alongside everything else in best dictation apps for Mac.

Wispr Flow is the big cross-platform option, but it is cloud-only by architecture. There is no on-device mode to switch to. If its 100+ languages and phone apps matter more to you than local processing, that is a legitimate priority ordering; see Wispr Flow vs Infina for the full comparison.

FAQ

Does Infina really work with no internet at all? Yes, for its default mode. Transcription (Parakeet on the Neural Engine), text cleanup, and hands-free listening all run locally, so dictation works on a plane with Wi-Fi off. Only the optional cloud add-on needs a connection.

Is on-device dictation less accurate than cloud dictation? Cloud models are typically larger and sharper on rare names and jargon, which is exactly what Infina's optional add-on buys. For everyday English speech, Infina's on-device accuracy is strong (95%+ for clear speech), and for AI prompting the difference rarely matters.

What data does Infina store about my dictations? By default, none. Privacy mode is on out of the box, so no audio and no transcripts are stored server-side. If you manually turn privacy mode off to keep a history, transcripts are saved to your account.

Is the $10/month cloud add-on required for anything? No. It adds cloud transcription, polished cleanup by large language models, and more languages. The app fully works, transcribing entirely on-device, if you never buy it or cancel it.

Isn't Apple's free dictation enough for private dictation? For casual use, maybe. On Apple Silicon, general text dictation can process on-device. Paid tools earn their price with speed, app-aware workflows, and (in Infina's case) hands-free prompting and Mac voice control on top of private dictation.

The bottom line

Ask one question of any dictation tool: does my audio leave my machine? If the answer is "yes, unless you find the right settings," you are trusting a policy. If the answer is "no, by default," you are trusting physics.

Infina is built on the second answer: on-device by default, offline-capable, nothing stored, with cloud strictly as a labeled, optional add-on. One $99 purchase, no subscription, and a 7-day money-back guarantee. Your voice should be yours to place, and with Infina it stays on your Mac.