Kekoso

Speech to text on a Mac usually means paying three or four services: one for dictation, one for meetings, one for converting files, an API key for the rest. Kekoso does all four, and the recognition runs on hardware you already own.

Dictation: press a hotkey, speak, and the text appears where the cursor already was, in Mail, Slack, a code editor or a browser form. No per-app integration, no waiting on a server.

Files and links: drop in MP3, M4A, WAV or MP4, or paste a YouTube link, and get a transcript with timestamps that exports to TXT, SRT or VTT.

Calls: record from your own side and get the transcript split in two, your microphone on one track and everyone else on the other, so no notetaker bot joins the meeting.

Agents: a local MCP server with eight tools lets Claude Code, Claude Desktop and Codex transcribe through Kekoso without an API key.

No account, no sign-in, no telemetry in the recognition path. macOS 14.4+, Apple silicon.