This looks and works great! A settings option to keep no recording history at all would be terrific.
Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
51–60 of 118 posts
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#52Did this thing (or open-whispr) work well with other languages than english ?
German also works great.
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#53As a Mac user, am I missing something? macOS has Dictation built-in, when you short press F5 it should start transcribing your spoken words into text in real time. It even does non-English languages.
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#54As a Mac user, am I missing something? macOS has Dictation built-in, when you short press F5 it should start transcribing your spoken words into text in real time. It even does non-English languages.
it's trash if:
- you're not a native speaker or have accent
- using airpods mic
- surroundings is noisy
- use novel words like 'claude code'
- mumble a bit
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#55Is it deployed locally or does it send data to your servers?
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#56Has anyone compared this with https://github.com/HeroTools/open-whispr already? From the description they seem very similar. Handy first release was June 2025, OpenWhispr a month later. Handy has ~11k GitHub stars, OpenWhispr has ~730.
I did have tried, but the ease of installing handy as just a macOS app is so much simpler than needing to constantly run in npm commands. I think at the time when I was checking it, which was a couple of months ago they did not have the parakeet model, which is a non-whisper model, so I had decided against it. If I remember correctly, the UI was also not the smoothest. Handy’s ui is so clean and minimalistic that you…
The OP asked if someone compared both, which usually means actually trying both and not just installing one and skimming through the other's README file. So, in summary, you didn't try both and didn't answer the OP.
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#57Does anyone have a similar mobile application that works locally and is not too expensive? Mostly looking to transcribe voice messages sent over Signal which does not offer this OOTB
I have been using this one from Futo for quite some time and love it: https://keyboard.futo.org/
They also have a voice input only version if you still would like to keep your typing keyboard: https://voiceinput.futo.org/
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#58I have dystonia which often stiffens my arms in a way that makes it impossible for me to type on a keyboard. TTS apps like SuperWhisper have proven to be very helpful for me in such situations. I am hoping to get a similar experience out of "Handy" (very apt maming from my perspective). I do, however, wonder if there is a way all these TTS tools can get to the next level. The generated text should not be just a verba…
I made something called `ultraplan`. It's is a CLI tool that records multi-modal context (audio transcription via local Whisper, screenshots, clipboard content, etc.) into a timeline that AI agents like Claude Code can consume.
I have a claude skill `/record` that runs the CLI which starts a new recording. I debug, research, etc., then say "finito" (or choose your own stopword). It outputs a markdown file with your transcribed speech interleaved with screenshots and text that you copied. You can say other keywords like "marco" and it will take a screenshot hands-free.
When the session ends, claude reads the timeline (e.g. looks at screenshots) and gets to work.
I can clean it up and push to github if anyone would get use out of it.
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#59It’s incredibly fast on my MacBook m1 air and more accurate that the native speech to text. The ui is well thought out, just the right amount of setting for my usage. Incredible ! Btw, do you know what « discharging the model » does ? It’s set to never by default, tried to check if it has an impact on ram or cpu but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
the model is permanently loaded into ram for access speed. discharging it would unload it from ram and lead to longer start times
Re: Handy – Free open source speech-to-text app
#60It’s incredibly fast on my MacBook m1 air and more accurate that the native speech to text. The ui is well thought out, just the right amount of setting for my usage. Incredible ! Btw, do you know what « discharging the model » does ? It’s set to never by default, tried to check if it has an impact on ram or cpu but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
the model is permanently loaded into ram for access speed. discharging it would unload it from ram and lead to longer start times
It does unload it, and actually might be a good default for most people as the model loading does happen in the background as soon as you hit the key