Plainsay – 12 MB Mac dictation with local Whisper and Parakeet

Plainsay offers Mac dictation whose privacy depends on two separate settings: speech recognition and optional text polishing. With local recognition and polishing disabled or running locally, both the recording and transcript stay on the Mac. Selecting hosted polishing sends the transcript to a provider even when speech recognition remains local.

The advertised 12 MB download is the application, with speech models downloaded separately. Recognition can work offline after that download, although automatic update checks use the network. This makes the distinction between local transcription and a fully local dictation workflow consequential when choosing settings.