Dictation without AI on a Mac: keep your exact words

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If you want dictation that types exactly what you said, without an AI rewriting your sentences, use a mode with no cleanup step. In YapToText that is Raw Transcription, or the Post-transcription analysis switch on the Home page turned off, which removes every mode and every rewrite.

One honest caveat first. Every modern speech recognizer, Apple's included, is a trained neural model, so no dictation is free of AI in that sense. What you can avoid is a second model changing your words after you say them, and that is what this page is about. I make YapToText, and I dictate everything because my hands make typing difficult.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

Steps

  1. Open YapToText's Home page.
  2. Turn off Post-transcription analysis, or pick Raw Transcription as the mode.
  3. Tap Right Command and dictate.
  4. Open History to compare what was heard with what was typed.

Two kinds of AI in dictation

  • Recognition. A speech model turns sound into words. Whisper, which YapToText uses, is one. There is no practical dictation without this step.
  • Rewriting. A language model then tidies, reformats or rephrases what was heard. This is the part people usually mean by AI, and the part you can switch off.

If your worry is an app putting words in your mouth, it is the rewriting step to turn off.

Turning the rewriting off in YapToText

  • For one mode. Pick Raw Transcription, described in the app as fast, literal speech-to-text with basic punctuation and no AI. It is the selected mode whenever Auto is off.
  • For everything. Turn off Post-transcription analysis on the Home page. That gives the fastest raw transcription, with no modes, no Auto and no cleanup.
  • For a mode you made. In the mode editor, under AI cleanup, switch off Rewrite the transcript with AI.

Dictionaries keep working with the rewriting off, because they are handed to the speech model before it decodes, not applied in a rewrite.

What Auto mode does, if you leave it on

Auto is cautious by design. Short or casual chat stays exactly as spoken, a letter with a greeting and sign-off is formatted as an email, and everything else gets a conservative pass that fixes what was misheard and rewrites nothing.

Every History entry keeps the raw transcript beside the cleaned one, so you can always see what was heard before anything touched it.

Where the words go

Even with rewriting on, YapToText runs both its speech model and its cleanup model on the Mac. There is no account, no analytics, and nothing you say is sent to a server.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

The private dictation page covers what stays on your Mac, and the modes guide covers every mode.

Other ways to get unrewritten dictation

  • Apple Dictation. Built into macOS. It recognizes speech and adds punctuation, and it is not built to rephrase what you said.
  • Rival apps. Many offer a plain transcription mode, often by another name. Check that it really skips the language model, not just the formatting.

The Mac dictation guide covers Apple's built-in option.

The short version

  • No dictation is model-free. Speech recognition itself is a trained model.
  • Rewriting is optional. That is the AI most people want to avoid.
  • In YapToText. Raw Transcription for one dictation, or Post-transcription analysis off for all of them.
  • Check what was heard. History keeps the raw transcript.

If a setting here has moved in a new version, open an issue on GitHub. Every one gets read.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreThis app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Sources

Questions

Is there dictation software without AI?

Not in the strict sense, because all modern speech recognition uses a trained model. You can avoid AI rewriting, though. In YapToText, use Raw Transcription or turn off Post-transcription analysis.

How do I stop dictation from rewriting my words?

In YapToText, pick Raw Transcription, or turn off Post-transcription analysis on the Home page to remove all modes and cleanup.

Does Apple Dictation use AI?

It uses a trained speech model to recognize words, like every modern dictation system, but it does not rephrase your sentences.

Can I see what the speech model heard before cleanup?

Yes. Every YapToText History entry keeps the raw transcript beside the cleaned one.

Is no-AI dictation more private?

Not by itself. What matters is where the models run. YapToText runs both its speech and cleanup models on the Mac.