ploca
A fast, accurate voice-to-text app for Mac that is truly private.
Signed and notarized by Apple.
Free public beta · Apple Silicon · 16 GB recommended · macOS 13 or later
ploca is a Mac app. On your phone? Enter your email and we'll send the link for your Mac.
See it
Hold Fn, speak, release. Clean text lands where your cursor is.
What it is
On-device speech recognition. ploca runs the engine you prioritize, matched to your Mac and language. Audio never touches the disk.
Text lands at your cursor. Notes, Notion, Slack, VS Code, Mail.
Vocabulary packs tuned for code-switched speech, not a generic toggle.
How it works
Hold Fn and speak.
On-device speech recognition.
Filler and punctuation.
Text at your cursor.
Features
Pick your priority at setup. ploca runs the fastest engine for English, or the most accurate one for other languages and hard audio. Switch anytime from the menu bar.
Raw, Clean, or Refine ✨ via a local Mistral model. No API keys, no per-token cost. English for now.
Teach it the names it keeps missing, seeded so they come out right.
A short trigger expands to full text. Exact-match, no guessing.
Think out loud in passes. Review before anything is injected.
Hold your dictation key, add the key next to it, and read a list out loud. ploca formats it instead of running it into one sentence. It follows commas and spoken cues like "Number one" and "Next". English only for now.
A local seven-day chart of words dictated and time saved.
Push-to-talk on Fn, right Command, or right Option. Your choice.
It stops listening when you stop talking, not on a fixed timer.
Privacy
Most apps ask you to trust a privacy policy. ploca removes the need for trust. No code writes your audio to disk or sends your transcripts anywhere. Telemetry was never built.
Compare
Wispr Flow and Superwhisper are good tools with different trade-offs. Here is where ploca stands apart, and where it does less.
| ploca | Wispr Flow | Superwhisper | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs fully on-device | |||
| No cloud path at all | |||
| Works offline | |||
| Local refine, no API keys | |||
| No screen or keylogger access | |||
| Tuned for Tanglish and Hinglish | |||
| Windows and mobile too | |||
| Price | Free in beta | About $15 / mo | From $8.49 / mo |
Competitor details are drawn from their public pages in mid-2026 and may change. Check their sites for current terms.
Who it's for
Why it exists
A pen's job is to write. Not to remember. Not to transmit.
A voice-to-text app should act like a pen. It should hear you and write it down, and nothing more. There are already plenty of notepads, audio archives, and second brains. Those are different products, for different jobs.
I kept looking for that pen and could not find one. I am a writer who is lazy to type, and I do not want a model generating my first draft. Every tool I tried had a trade-off I could not live with. The transcription was not good enough, the privacy was someone else's policy document, or my words were quietly training a model I would never see.
So I built ploca for myself. Since then I have been publishing at least one essay a week, thinking out loud with Claude instead of typing, and getting thoughts down as fast as they form. The friction is gone.
If that sounds useful to you, I would like to have you in the beta.
Aasif Iqbal J. · maker of ploca
Read the five principles behind ploca →Public beta
Open and free until 30 August 2026, for as long as the beta runs.
Signed and notarized by Apple.
We email you the link. Apple Silicon · 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended) · macOS 13 Ventura or later. The app is about 180 MB; the first launch downloads a speech model sized to your Mac (around 1 to 3 GB), once.
Signed and notarized by Apple.
We only use your email to send your download link and occasional beta updates. It is never linked to your dictation, which stays on your Mac.
Apple Silicon, 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended), macOS 13 Ventura or later. First launch downloads an on-device speech model, about 1 to 3 GB, once. Unsubscribe anytime.