Dilo
Dilo bien.
Hold a key, speak, let go. The text appears where your caret already is, in whatever app you were using. Spanish, English, or both in the same sentence. It runs on your Mac, it costs nothing, and there is nothing to sign up for.
Version 1.1.0 · 4 MB · macOS 13 or later · Apple Silicon
Free. Unlimited words. No account.
1.0.3
This is the build you download today. It is the current public version, not a preview.
Hold Right Option, say it, let go. The text lands where you were already typing.
Spanish, English, or both in one sentence. It starts on Apple's engine, which is already on your Mac and downloads nothing. Whisper is there if you need mixed language, or Spanish on an English Mac: 1.5 GB, once, on wifi.
Say your punctuation out loud in either language. Fix yourself mid sentence and it keeps the correction.
The Dictionary tab is for the names it always misses. You type those in yourself.
Nothing leaves your Mac.
How it works
Hold Right Option, say what you mean, and let go. Dilo writes it into the field you were already in. It never brings its own window forward, and it never touches your clipboard.
Say your punctuation out loud, in either language: coma, punto, comma, period, new line. Correct yourself mid sentence and it keeps the correction: say "nos vemos a las cuatro, digo a las tres" and you get a las tres.
The Dictionary tab is where it becomes yours. Teach it the names and terms speech recognition always gets wrong, once, and it stops getting them wrong.
First launch
Open the app and Dilo asks for two things. A third only matters if you stay on Apple's engine.
- Microphone Dilo listens only while you hold the hotkey.
- Accessibility This is how Dilo types into other apps. It does not read your screen.
- Speech Recognition Only if you stay on Apple's engine, and only on this Mac. Audio is not uploaded. Whisper does not use it at all.
Accessibility is the one macOS will not grant from a prompt. Open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Accessibility, and switch Dilo on. It notices within a couple of seconds.
That is the setup. Hold Right Option and talk. You are on Apple's engine, nothing has been downloaded, and it already works.
Two engines, and when to switch
You start on Apple's speech engine. It is instant, it is already on your Mac, and it downloads nothing. For a lot of people that is the whole story and there is never a reason to change it.
The catch is that Apple only understands the languages macOS has already downloaded a model for. On an English Mac that usually does not include Spanish, and it cannot follow a sentence that switches language halfway through.
Whisper is the answer to that, and it is the reason Dilo exists. One multilingual model that handles Spanish, English, and a sentence that changes language in the middle, without asking macOS for permission to speak your language.
It is optional, and you are never made to take it. Dilo offers it from the Hub when the language you picked is not covered. It is a one-time 1.5 GB download, so do that part on wifi. After it lands, Dilo works with no connection at all and never asks the internet for anything again.
So: if you only ever dictate in one language your Mac already knows, stay on Apple's engine. If your sentences mix two languages, or your Mac does not have Spanish, that is when Whisper is worth the download.
It keeps itself up to date
Dilo is not on the Mac App Store, because the store requires the sandbox and a sandboxed app is never allowed to type into other apps. So Dilo carries its own updater: it checks once a day, downloads quietly, and applies the new version the next time it starts. Nothing pops up while you are working.
Every update is signed with a key only I hold, and a Dilo already on your Mac refuses anything that key did not sign. You can turn the whole thing off in Settings.
Nothing leaves your Mac
Your voice is transcribed on the machine in front of you. There is no server, no account, and no sign in.
The recording is a temporary file that is deleted the moment the transcription finishes. Your history and your dictionary are plain files in ~/Library/Application Support/Dilo, capped at 200 entries, never synced. Delete that folder and Dilo has forgotten everything.
No analytics. No crash reporting service. No word counter waiting to sell you a plan. Dilo does not read your screen and does not take screenshots, and there is no setting that turns that on.
Dilo makes exactly two kinds of network request in its life: the one-time model download, if you choose Whisper, and the daily check for a new version. Both are switchable off. Neither one carries a word you said.
What it is not
There is no iPhone app, no meeting notetaker, and no subscription. Dilo is a menu bar utility for a Mac, and it is finished when the text lands correctly.
Watch it work
Sixty-eight seconds, start to finish: install it, grant two permissions, and talk.