tl;dr
Offline Mac dictation works when the speech model is already on your Mac: in Auri Voice, download a local engine under Settings > Voice engine, grant Microphone and Accessibility, and recognition keeps working with the network off. Cleanup is a separate step that uses Auri Cloud by default and needs a connection; choose Auri Local in AI settings (Apple Silicon) to keep cleanup working offline too. Prove the setup in ten minutes: turn Wi-Fi off in Control Center and dictate into Notes, Mail, and Slack.
What has to be on disk before you lose the network
Miss any one of these and the app either refuses to start or sits quietly waiting on a server you cannot reach. The model download is the step people remember; Accessibility permission is the one they forget, and without it the recognized text has nowhere to go.
- A speech model on disk that covers the languages you plan to speak.
- Microphone permission on the same macOS user account you will be logged into.
- Accessibility permission if the app inserts text by typing or pasting.
- Free disk for the model: between 141 MB and 1.5 GB, depending on the engine.
In Auri Voice, engines download once from Settings > Voice engine; each card shows its size and languages before you commit:
- Fast Multilingual Dictation (Parakeet TDT v3): ~461 MB, 25 languages in a single download. The default on Apple Silicon.
- Fast English Dictation (Parakeet TDT v2): ~443 MB, English only.
- Low-Latency Multilingual (Nemotron 3.5 ASR): ~668 MB, 32 locales.
- Lightweight, Any Mac (Whisper Base): ~141 MB, 99 languages. The default on Intel Macs.
- High-Quality Local (Whisper Large Turbo): ~1.5 GB, 99 languages, needs 8 GB of RAM or more.
- Built-In, No Download (Apple On-Device): nothing to download, 9 languages, requires macOS 26.
- Fast, Accurate, No Download (Auri Cloud): nothing on disk and nothing offline. It needs the network every time.
One download can cover many languages: Fast Multilingual handles its 25 with that single ~461 MB file, so there is no per-language pack to manage. Which engine to pick is its own question, and the engine guide has the decision logic. For a trip, keep your current engine and confirm the download finished before you pack.
The ten-minute Wi-Fi-off test
Check offline support yourself before you rely on it. With the engine downloaded and permissions granted, the test takes about ten minutes, and it tells you which apps will cooperate at 30,000 feet.
- Download your engine and open the app once while you still have a connection.
- Grant Microphone and Accessibility, then quit and relaunch the app so the permissions take effect.
- Turn Wi-Fi off in Control Center. macOS has no airplane mode, so the Wi-Fi toggle is the whole switch; unplug Ethernet if you use it.
- Dictate two paragraphs into Notes, one reply in Mail, one message in Slack, and one paragraph in a browser document.
- Read the results. Look for missing punctuation, dropped last words, and text landing in the wrong window.
How to read it, from the on-device guide: dictation that fails outright was using remote recognition; output that turns rough kept local recognition but lost its remote cleanup; output identical to your online result means both steps run on the Mac.
Two failures have specific fixes. If your engine is Auri Cloud, dictation fails with the error "Auri Cloud transcription could not be reached", and Auri Voice does not fall back to a local engine on its own; switch under Settings > Voice engine and rerun the test. If Notes works and Slack does not, that is a focus or permission problem in Slack, and reinstalling the speech engine will not fix it. Repeat the test after you change engines or the cleanup provider.
Where Apple Dictation stops being enough
Apple Dictation sits on the keyboard, costs nothing, and can run on device for supported languages after speech assets install. For short bursts on a trusted machine, that is often all you need. The gaps show up when you dictate for a living rather than a sentence at a time.
| What you want offline | Built-in dictation |
|---|---|
| Long takes without cutting off | Tuned for short bursts |
| Custom vocabulary for names and products | No user-managed word list |
| Searchable transcript history | Not provided |
| One shortcut that behaves the same everywhere | Depends on keyboard and app |
| Cleanup of fillers and false starts | You edit by hand |
Apple Dictation installs speech assets per language, so confirm each language you speak has its pack before you leave home Wi-Fi. Switching to a second language mid-flight without the pack turns a local workflow back into a failed network request, and there is no way to fix that from a seat.
Recognition and cleanup are two separate questions
Audio to text is one step; text to clean writing is a second step, and plenty of tools run the first locally while sending the second to a server. Local Speech Recognition Explained covers how the two pipelines work. Ask any app two questions before a trip:
- Does recognition run on device after the model downloads?
- Does the polish pass that removes fillers and fixes punctuation also run on device?
Auri Voice transcribes on your Mac by default. The cleanup pass sends the transcribed text (never audio) to the provider you pick — Auri Cloud unless you change it; choose Auri Local in AI settings to keep both steps on the Mac (Apple Silicon). Auri Local runs small language models on the Mac itself and needs no connection, so an offline draft still arrives cleaned:
You said: "we ship, um, Tuesday, sorry, Wednesday"
Auri typed (Auri Local cleanup, Wi-Fi off): "We ship Wednesday."
Without a local cleanup provider, an offline take keeps the um, the false start, and both days, and you edit it by hand. Switch the provider in AI settings before the trip.
Failures that look like the engine and are not
When offline dictation breaks, the speech model is rarely the culprit. Recognition can succeed while the destination app refuses to accept, save, or send the text. Knowing the difference saves you from redownloading gigabytes in an airport lounge.
| Destination | Offline recognition | What still needs a network |
|---|---|---|
| Notes or a local Markdown file | Works | iCloud sync of the file |
| Works | Sending the message | |
| Docs in a browser | Insert usually works | Saving and collaboration |
| Slack | Insert usually works | Delivery to the channel |
Keep one local capture file for travel days and paste upward once you reconnect. Put a timestamp in the title so you do not overwrite a newer paragraph with an older one. If insertion fails in a single app, click the field again and retry before touching settings. Electron apps such as Slack lose focus more often than native ones, and a second click fixes most of it.
FAQ
Does Apple Dictation work offline on Mac?
For some languages it can, once the speech assets are installed. Coverage varies by language and macOS version, so turn Wi-Fi off and dictate a paragraph before you count on it during travel.
Do local engines need the internet after the download?
No. Once the model files are on disk, recognition runs on the Mac. You need a network only for the first download and for any cloud feature you deliberately turn on.
How much disk should I budget?
Whisper Base is the smallest at about 141 MB; Whisper Large Turbo is the largest at about 1.5 GB. Auri's defaults sit between: Fast Multilingual is about 461 MB, Fast English about 443 MB. Check free space before a trip, because a nearly full SSD is the most common reason a download fails the night before a flight.
Does cleanup still work offline, or do I get raw transcript?
It depends on the provider. Auri Voice's cleanup uses Auri Cloud by default, which needs the network. Choose Auri Local in AI settings (Apple Silicon) before the trip and the cleanup pass runs on the Mac, so filler removal and punctuation keep working offline.
What happens if Auri Cloud is my engine and the network drops?
Dictation fails with the error that Auri Cloud transcription could not be reached. Auri Voice does not switch engines on its own, so pick a local engine under Settings > Voice engine before you go offline.
My mic works offline but no text appears. What broke?
Almost always focus or Accessibility, not the model. Click into the field before you speak, then check that the app still holds Accessibility permission after its last update.