Vox

Open-source voice-to-text app with local Whisper transcription and AI-powered correction.

Hold a keyboard shortcut, speak, and Vox transcribes your voice locally using whisper.cpp, optionally corrects it with AI, and pastes the text into your active app.

Demo

⚠️ Platform Support Vox currently runs on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel). Cross-platform support for Windows and Linux is planned for future releases.

Table of Contents

• Quick Start
• Features
• Requirements
• Configuration
• Usage
• Development
• Contributing
• License

Quick Start

Download the latest version from the releases page and drag Vox.app to your Applications folder.

First Launch

When you first launch Vox, you'll need to:

1. Download a Whisper Model — Go to Settings > Local Model and download at least one speech recognition model. The "small" model (Recommended) is a good starting point.

2. Grant Permissions — Vox needs:

   • Microphone: Required for voice recording
   • Accessibility: Required for keyboard shortcuts and auto-paste

3. Configure Shortcuts (optional) — Customize keyboard shortcuts in Settings > Shortcuts

4. Enable AI Improvements (optional) — Configure LLM provider in Settings > AI Improvements

Vox will guide you through this setup process with visual indicators showing what's incomplete.

Once configured, hold Alt+Space to start recording.

Features

• Local transcription — Powered by whisper.cpp, audio stays on your device
• AI correction — Removes filler words and fixes grammar (optional)
• Hold or toggle modes — Press-and-hold or toggle recording on/off
• Auto-paste — Text appears in your focused app via Cmd+V
• Multiple models — Choose speed vs accuracy (tiny to large)
• Multiple LLM providers — OpenAI-compatible or AWS Bedrock
• Menu bar app — Runs quietly in the background

Requirements

• macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel)
• LLM provider (optional) — for text correction:
  • OpenAI-compatible endpoint with API key
  • Or AWS Bedrock credentials with model access

Configuration

Whisper Models

Download at least one model from the Whisper tab:

Model	Size	Speed	Accuracy
tiny	~75 MB	Fastest	Lower
base	~140 MB	Fast	Decent
small	~460 MB	Good	Good
medium	~1.5 GB	Slow	Better
large	~3 GB	Slowest	Best

LLM Provider

Foundry (OpenAI-compatible)

• Endpoint URL
• API key
• Model name (e.g., gpt-4o)

AWS Bedrock

• AWS region
• Credentials (access key, profile, or default chain)
• Model ID (e.g., anthropic.claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022-v2:0)

Shortcuts

Customize keyboard shortcuts in the Shortcuts tab:

• Hold mode (default: Alt+Space)
• Toggle mode (default: Alt+Shift+Space)

Usage

Once configured, Vox runs as a menu bar icon.

Press your shortcut to record. The floating indicator shows:

• Red — Recording
• Yellow — Transcribing
• Blue — Correcting (if LLM enabled)

Release (hold mode) or press again (toggle mode) to stop. Text is pasted automatically.

If correction fails, raw transcription is used. If transcription is empty (silence/noise), nothing is pasted.

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/app-vox/vox.git
cd vox
npm install

Run

npm run dev     # Development with hot reload
npm test        # Run tests
npm run dist    # Build production app

Built with Electron, React, TypeScript, and whisper.cpp.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! To contribute:

1. Fork and create a feature branch
2. Make your changes
3. Run npm run typecheck && npm run lint && npm test
4. Commit with Conventional Commits (e.g., feat(audio): add noise gate)
5. Open a pull request

⚠️ See more details in CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT