Vaani — Voice to polished text, right at your cursor
Description: Vaani is a macOS menu bar app that transcribes your speech with OpenAI Whisper and polishes it with Claude AI. Hold a hotkey, speak, and polished text appears at your cursor.
Keywords: macOS dictation, AI voice typing, whisper dictation mac, claude ai dictation, voice to text mac, menubar dictation, pip install dictation

macOS · OpenAI Whisper · Claude AI

# Voice to polished text,
right at your cursor.

Hold a hotkey, speak naturally, release — and ready-to-send text appears wherever your cursor is. No app switching. No copy-pasting. No manual cleanup.

$ pip install vaani && vaani start

Requires Python 3.10+ · macOS 12+ · OpenAI and Anthropic API keys

1 Hold `Alt` and speak
→
2 Release to process
→
3 Polished text appears at cursor

Pipeline

## From voice to polished prose in ~2 seconds

Every step runs in the background. The menu bar icon shows your current state.

🎙
Mic capture
sounddevice
→
🔇
VAD trim
Silero VAD
→
📈
Gain norm
RMS-based
→
📝
Transcribe
Whisper API
→
✨
Enhance
Claude Haiku
→
⌨️
Paste
pynput

What makes it different

## Built for developers who write a lot

The only pip-installable dictation tool that combines best-in-class transcription with best-in-class enhancement — under your own API keys.

⌨️
Works everywhere
Terminal, IDE, browser, Slack, email, Notion — anywhere there's a text cursor. No app focus required.
🔑
BYOK — your API keys
No Vaani servers, no middleman markup. API calls go directly from your machine to OpenAI and Anthropic.
📦
pip install vaani
The only dictation tool that fits in your dotfiles. Version-control it, install it on remote Macs, update with pip.
🧠
Neural VAD
Silero VAD trims silence with a neural network — not energy thresholds. Works on whispers and noisy environments.
📝
Custom prompts
Override any mode with your own prompt files. Add a `context.txt` with your name, role, and common terms.
⚡
Hot-reload config
`~/.vaani/config.yaml` is watched for changes. Edit and save — no restart needed.
🔒
Encrypted history
Transcription history is stored in a local SQLite database with AES-256 encryption. Nothing leaves your machine.
🔑
Keychain storage
API keys are stored in macOS Keychain — never written to disk in plaintext.

Enhancement modes

## Match your tone to the context

Switch modes from the menu bar. Each mode sends a different prompt to Claude.

Cleanup
Fix grammar, remove filler words with minimal rewrites. Preserves your original meaning.
Professional
Formal rewrite for business emails, docs, and async communication.
Casual
Friendly, conversational tone. For Slack, DMs, and informal writing.
Bullets
Converts your spoken thoughts into clean, organized bullet points.

Override any mode with your own prompt file in `~/.vaani/prompts/modes/`

Privacy

## No Vaani servers. Ever.

All cloud calls go directly from your machine to OpenAI and Anthropic under your own account. There is no Vaani backend.

Audio
Sent to OpenAI
Under your API key. Subject to OpenAI's data retention policy.
Transcribed text
Sent to Anthropic
Under your API key. Subject to Anthropic's data retention policy.
API keys
macOS Keychain only
Never written to disk in plaintext. Stored using the system credential store.
Transcription history
Local SQLite database
Stored on your machine. AES-256 encrypted with Fernet.

Comparison

## Where Vaani fits in

Same output quality as subscription tools — at a fraction of the cost.

Tool | Price | AI Enhancement | Custom Prompts | pip install | Your API keys
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Vaani | ~$0.50/mo API costs | ✓ 4 modes + custom | ✓ File-based | ✓ | ✓
Wispr Flow | $15/mo | ✓ Context-adaptive | ✗ | ✗ | ✗
SuperWhisper | $8.49/mo or $249 lifetime | ✓ Multi-model | ✓ GUI-based | ✗ | ~ Optional
Whisper Dictation | Free | ✗ None | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ Local only
macOS Dictation | Free | ✗ None | ✗ | ✗ | —

Get started

## Two ways to install

Both paths end at the same place: polished text at your cursor.

Recommended
pip install

For developers. Fits in your dotfiles, installs in one command, updates with pip.

$ pip install vaani
$ python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm
$ vaani start

Onboarding runs automatically on first launch — enter your API keys and grant permissions. Requires OpenAI and Anthropic API keys.

App bundle
Download .dmg

Standalone macOS app. Drag to Applications, then remove the quarantine flag.

Download for macOS

After dragging to Applications, run once in Terminal:

$ xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Vaani.app

Required because Vaani isn't yet notarized with Apple. One-time only.

## No subscription. No servers. Just your voice.

API costs run ~$0.50/month at typical usage. You own your keys.

View on GitHub
Download .dmg