I Built One of the Fastest Real-Time Transcription Apps for MAC
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Developer shares their real-time transcription app for Mac, motivated by personal need due to health issues.
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To keep going, I thought I could use a transcription tool for the vibe coding part of the day, where I usually need to write out detailed prompts.
All of them had one or more dealbreakers for me: - slow transcription (>500ms or even seconds for short audio) - slow mic init (>50ms) - bloaty amount of features slowing down the app - cloud or log in - subscriptions
I just built my own so it feels like talking to your OS:
- most of my transcripts take 100 - 250ms from hotkey release to paste. Going from >500ms to <250ms feels a bit like going from 60 to 120fps
- about 200MB RAM, barely touches your battery
- no login, no cloud, not even analytics. Literally nothing leaves your Mac. Only two connections: Parakeet download on launch and Polar/Gumroad if you enter a license key
It just has one job: Near instant transcription so coding feels like magic.
Thought I'd share it here. Feedback welcome.