MacWhisper
App : A product you use directly
Local Whisper transcription on Mac, with a polished interface.
The most enjoyable transcription app on Mac; the Pro version at €59 lifetime is worth it.
Security reflects where data goes, requested permissions and incidents on record at the verification date. It is not a guarantee of zero risk: check the deployment mode and the connections you enable.
What it does, concretely
Transcribing audio or video recordings is time-consuming and often exposes sensitive data to remote servers. MacWhisper solves this by running OpenAI's Whisper models directly on your Mac, with no file ever sent to the cloud.
In practice, you simply drag and drop an audio or video file into the app window and transcription starts immediately, with no prior configuration needed. Supported formats include MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, Opus, MOV, and MP4. You can also paste a YouTube URL to transcribe an online video, or record directly from your microphone or the system audio of Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, or Discord.
MacWhisper is aimed at journalists transcribing interviews, podcasters generating subtitles, students recording lectures, and anyone who regularly works with audio and cares about file confidentiality.
However, it is not a real-time dictation tool for use inside other applications: its core job is file transcription. Windows and Android users cannot use it, as the app is exclusively for macOS.
What it offers
- ·Local and offline transcription: Whisper models run entirely on your Mac, no audio data ever leaves the device.
- ·Support for over 100 languages with automatic language detection.
- ·Batch transcription of entire folders and watch-folder automation to process new files as they arrive (paid).
- ·Automatic speaker identification (diarization) to distinguish different speakers in a recording (paid).
- ·Export in many formats: SRT, VTT, TXT, CSV, DOCX, PDF, Markdown, and HTML.
- ·Automatic removal of filler words ('um', 'uh') for cleaner output.
- ·AI post-processing via your own API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, etc.) to summarise, rephrase, or translate a transcript (paid).
- ·Automatic meeting recording from Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, Discord, and other platforms.
In practice
- Price
- Freemium · from 59 €
- Commercial use
- Commercial use: yes
- Available on
- macos
- FR interface
- No
Security and data
- Rating
- Security: nothing to flag
- Your data
- Data stays local
- Maintenance
- Active
Links and repository checked on 25 October 2026 · added on 1 February 2023
How to install MacWhisper
brew install --cask macwhisper