Quill

Local-first voice dictation

Talk. Release. Text appears where you were typing.

Quill captures your microphone, transcribes with Whisper, optionally polishes with embedded llama.cpp, then pastes into the focused field. No cloud round-trip for transcripts by default. The new app shell is paper-first: large readable type, no-glow sheets, and a live transcript canvas while you talk.

Download alpha Read docs
F8
Raw dictation
F9
Enhanced polish
Local
Whisper + GGUF
Paper
AAA themes
Quill setup screen showing microphone, accessibility, speech recognition, and polish readiness Quill live recording screen with audio meter and partial transcript
Default privacy posture

Audio stays on the machine. Transcripts are not logged at the default tracing level. Remote speech or polish providers are explicit opt-ins, not hidden fallbacks.

Verify the privacy story

Pipeline

One hold-to-talk loop, two output lanes.

1

Capture

Hold the hotkey. The daemon opens the mic with cpal, watches level and VAD, and stops when you release or silence wins.

2

Transcribe

Whisper runs locally, with Metal acceleration on macOS and CPU fallback on Linux.

3

Polish

F9 adds embedded llama.cpp against a verified Qwen3 GGUF. F8 skips polish and returns the fastest raw text.

4

Paste

Quill injects via clipboard paste or Accessibility. If automatic paste fails, the final text stays on the clipboard.

Quill live view with recent transcripts
Transcripts stack in the live view so testers can inspect and copy results.
Quill settings view with capture, polish, and output options
Settings keep hotkeys, models, polish style, and paste mode visible without TOML spelunking.
Quill live view showing the enhancing stage
Enhanced dictation surfaces progress while the local polish pass runs.

Paper UI

Readable sheets, not glowing panels.

Paper

Warm default stock, larger Literata type, and shallow physical shadows.

Light

Crisp writing sheets with stronger separation than white-on-white UI.

Blue

Drafting-paper tone for testers who want less warmth without losing contrast.

Dark / OLED

Low-light paper variants with the same AAA text and control guarantees.

Closed alpha

Built for dogfooding, not a public signup funnel.

Shipping now

  • Universal macOS DMG, signed and notarized
  • Linux x86_64 AppImage and Debian package
  • F8 raw and F9 enhanced dictation defaults
  • Embedded llama.cpp polish, no bundled Ollama
  • First-run model download and verification
  • Paper-first app UI with AAA-checked theme variants

Still being tuned

  • Polish quality and latency across utterance lengths
  • Designer review of the paper theme family
  • macOS lifecycle polish and release hardening
  • Wayland ergonomics beyond compositor-owned hotkeys