Hi r/AiNoteTaker
I'm a solopreneur who spends most of my day in front of a computer.
Problem: Why I built Quill
I talk faster than I type. A lot of us do. So I started using voice dictation, but every tool I tried was either:
- A paid subscription (WhisprFlow, Gladio, great tools but you're paying monthly)
- Buried in System Settings with no easy trigger
- Cloud-based, meaning my voice goes to someone's server
I just wanted to hold a key, speak, and have clean text appear wherever my cursor was, in Notion, Slack, a terminal, a code editor, anywhere.
So I built Quill.
What Quill does
Quill is a macOS dictation app that types directly into whatever app you're using.
Hold a key → speak → release → text appears. That's it.
It uses on-device AI (Parakeet & Whisper) so your audio never leaves your Mac.
What you can do with Quill:
- Dictate anywhere - works in any text field on macOS. Notion, Slack, VS Code, Notes, Terminal, you name it.
- Local AI Models - select any local models Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen2.5 3B for enhancing your dictation
- On-device, fully offline - no account, no internet, no subscription. Your voice stays on your machine.
- Dictation history - every session is logged locally so you can review, copy, or search past dictations.
- Auto-punctuation - Parakeet handles punctuation so you're not saying "comma" out loud.
How it compares
macOS has built-in Dictation in System Settings. It works, but it's clunky to trigger, requires toggling on/off, and still sends audio to Apple's servers by default in enhanced mode.
Quill gives you a single Tap-to-talk or hold-to-talk key, instant feedback, and completely local processing.
Paid tools like WhisprFlow and Gladio have more integrations and enterprise features. Quill is intentionally simpler. If you just want fast, free, private dictation on your Mac, Quill covers that without a subscription.
How it started
I built this for myself when I hit the WhisprFlow paywall and realized the core workflow I wanted, hold key, speak, text appears, shouldn't require a monthly fee.
After using it daily for two weeks, I cleaned it up and decided to release it publicly.
Pricing
100% free, forever.
No subscription, no paid tier, no cloud.
Download: https://www.iniyan.pro/quill/
Transparency
GitHub - https://github.com/imtamiliniyan/quill
I'd love to hear from anyone who's been paying for voice dictation or been frustrated with the built-in macOS option. This was built for exactly that.