Yap

Yap works without internet. Your speech stays on your own device and the text appears right where your cursor is. Yap treats privacy as the starting point, not as an extra option.

Dictate without your voice leaving the device

Most speech-to-text tools send your audio to a server. Yap does not. According to the site, speech recognition runs entirely on the device, even without an internet connection. Finished text is stored locally unless you delete it yourself.

That matters if you dictate sensitive text. Think of notes from conversations, medical notes or confidential emails. You do not have to trust a provider's servers. It is also handy on the go: on a train or somewhere with weak wifi, dictation keeps working.

Yap started as a dictation tool for Mac, focused on local, private speech-to-text, without an account. Email-based accounts came later, for the free days and the paid plans. According to the site, the speech processing itself stays local.

The company behind Yap is O-mega Enterprise Inc., founded in 2024. It is not a European company. The privacy policy does state that finished text stays locally on your Mac. That policy names O-mega Enterprise Inc. as the party responsible for personal data.

From mumbling to clean text in any app

Yap does more than recognize words. The app removes hesitations like "um" and "uh" and adds punctuation itself. What is left is text you can use right away, without polishing it.

The text is typed where your cursor is. According to the site, that works in any app where you can type. Your email, your notes app, your browser, a chat window: it does not matter. So you do not need a separate window and then cut and paste the text.

You start recording with a shortcut you set yourself, or hands-free. The latter is handy if you walk around while thinking. The app also keeps a local history, so you can find earlier dictations without them sitting on a server.

The app detects which language you speak automatically. How many languages exactly is not on the site. Handy if you switch between Dutch and English at work. So test it during the free days if your language is a must.

Yap runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android. So you are not tied to one platform and can work the same way on your phone as on your computer.

What Yap costs, and what you get for free

There is one paid plan, which you pay monthly or yearly: unlimited on-device dictation, all platforms, shortcuts, hands-free recording and local history.

Paid monthly, it costs $ 6.90 per month. Paid yearly, it costs $ 69 per year, which comes to $ 5.75 per month. Do the math: if you use Yap for more than ten months, paying yearly is cheaper.

There is also a free account that gives you 3 days of access, without a credit card. A real free plan that you can keep using indefinitely does not exist. If you are unsure, use those free days to test calmly whether dictation fits your workflow.

Careful with reviews: not every Yap is this Yap

This is a real trap when judging Yap. Search online for reviews and you will find many about apps that are also called Yap but do something completely different. There is a banking app with that name, a chat app and an app for video contact.

On the Apple App Store the tool has 4.6 out of 5 stars, but that is based on only 12 ratings. That is too few to draw conclusions from. Major review sites have no reviews of this tool yet. If you want to know how well the speech recognition works, the sensible move is to use the trial yourself.

That the tool dates from 2024 shows here too. There is simply little independent experience to find yet. That does not have to be a problem, but it makes your own test during the free days extra important.

Yap next to MacWhisper, Superwhisper and Happy Scribe

YapFrom $ 5.75/moNo free planSuperwhisperFrom $ 7.08/moFree plan

MacWhisper is the best-known name in local speech recognition for Mac. That app is meant to transcribe audio and video files, not to type live into other apps. Pick MacWhisper if you mostly convert files and do not need app integration.

Superwhisper is the closest to Yap: speech to text in any app, with a choice between local and cloud models. That flexibility is handy if you sometimes deliberately choose the cloud, for example for heavier tasks. Yap is stricter: everything stays local, period. That makes the choice easier if privacy is your main requirement.

Happy Scribe is a different category. That platform is built for transcribing and subtitling recordings afterwards, not for live dictation while you work. If you want to write up interviews or videos, you are better off there.