kotoba 0.4.6

kotoba 0.4.6

Changed

• Long dictations come about 1.5 s sooner with MAI-Transcribe-2 via OpenRouter: while you speak, kotoba sends each part that ends at a short pause, so at the stop it waits only for the last part. Where you paused, the text can now start a new sentence.

Fixed

• With AirPods as the Mac’s default mic, kotoba records from the built-in mic. When the built-in mic does not open, kotoba now says so instead of recording from the AirPods, which switched them to call quality.
• A press right after you click Undo now stops the resumed dictation. Before, it could start a second recording over the first and mix their audio. Quitting while a dictation starts or resumes now keeps it for the next launch.
• Quitting while History’s Transcribe Again, a Polish or kotoba’s connection warm-up waits for its answer now waits up to 3 seconds for it, so Insights counts what it cost.

kotoba 0.4.5

kotoba 0.4.5

Changed

• Your text comes about 0.2 s sooner with MAI-Transcribe-2 via OpenRouter: kotoba sends a fifth of the audio bytes it sent before, at the same accuracy. Your recordings in History stay as they were.

Fixed

• Paste Last, Paste Again and Polish no longer paste into another app or the lock screen. When you go to another app or the screen locks just as you ask, the text waits on the clipboard, as for a dictation.
• When you start a recording just as Paste Last or Paste Again pastes, the recording pill stays.
• The Polishing pill no longer stays on screen when Polish ends with nothing to paste, for example after you deleted that dictation in History meanwhile.
• Learning from your edits waits while Polish rewrites your text, so its “learned” notice no longer covers the Polishing pill. It also waits while a second dictation is still being sent.
• When you start a recording just as kotoba sends a saved dictation again, that send waits until your new dictation is done, as it does when the recording started first.

kotoba 0.4.4

kotoba 0.4.4

Fixed

• A dictation sometimes pasted nothing and was not on the clipboard, mostly in a terminal. kotoba gave back your old clipboard while the app was still taking the text. Now it waits 0.2 s after the app reads the text.

kotoba 0.4.3

kotoba 0.4.3

Fixed

• The recording pill shows on every desktop (Space) again. Before, after some time it could stop showing on one desktop while it still showed on the others.

kotoba 0.4.2

kotoba 0.4.2

Improved

• kotoba gives memory back after you close its window. On a test build, memory after closing the window went from about 69 MB to about 41 MB.

kotoba 0.4.1

kotoba 0.4.1

New

• Say "new line" or "new paragraph" to start a new line or an empty line. Turn it on in Settings > General > Paste (off by default). In apps that use the Code mode, the word after a break keeps its case.

kotoba 0.4.0

kotoba 0.4.0

New

• Polish rewrites your last dictation shorter and clearer, with nothing lost. Choose "Polish Last Dictation" in the menu, or record a shortcut for it in Settings > General (off until you do). Where kotoba can find the text, it replaces it in place, with Undo for 8 seconds; otherwise the polished text goes to your clipboard. It uses DeepSeek V4.1 Flash through OpenRouter, with Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite as a fallback, on endpoints that keep no data.
• "View Changes…" in History shows, word by word, what cleanup and Polish changed.
• Copy Last copies your last dictation with ⌃⌘C; change it in Settings > General. If a dictation shortcut you recorded clashes with ⌃⌘C, Copy Last turns off and says why.
• Hands-free and Push to talk can use a middle or side mouse button, alone or with modifiers. Record it in Settings > General like a key. While it is your shortcut, apps no longer get that button.
• Double-tap your Push to talk shortcut to dictate hands-free, until your next press. This works when Push to talk has its own shortcut.
• History can play a dictation's saved audio (or press Space) and show the file in Finder.
• Transcribe Again in History sends a dictation's saved audio once more, with the current speech model or another one whose key you saved. The new text replaces the old; nothing is pasted.
• "Add Word…" in the menu bar menu opens the dictionary with a new word ready to type.
• The Modes pane shows an example of each mode: what you say and what kotoba pastes.
• VoiceOver: the indicator is a Start Dictating or Stop Dictating button, and Choose Mic… is its own button.

Faster

• With MAI-Transcribe-2 through OpenRouter, kotoba warms the speech route while you speak. The route answered slowly after a quiet minute; each dictation now sends a short clip of silence when it starts, so the route is warm when you stop. Each clip costs one billed second (about $0.00003) and shows in Usage.

Fixed

• Your clipboard comes back only after the app you dictate into has read the paste, so a busy app no longer pastes your old clipboard. If no app reads it within 10 seconds, the text stays on the clipboard and the indicator says "Copied. Press ⌘V to paste."
• A transcript that arrives after you switch apps, or while the screen is locked, goes to the clipboard and is never pasted into another app.
• Locking the screen, sleep or a user switch stops a recording, and kotoba transcribes what you said.
• A cleanup or Polish answer that was cut off is never pasted. A cut cleanup pastes the raw transcript instead.
• Automatic retries stop after 3 tries, then the dictation waits for your Retry. An answer kotoba cannot read is no longer sent again.
• Long recordings get more time to transcribe, and a slow answer says "OpenRouter took too long. Saved." instead of looking offline.
• Failed dictations are sent again sooner: when the speech service asks kotoba to wait (a rate limit or an outage), once that wait has passed, and when your next dictation goes through.
• A dictation waiting for a key or credit is sent as soon as you add it, even after 3 tries.
• Quitting waits up to 3 seconds for a dictation that is being sent, and never pastes. A text that arrives during quit is kept in History as "Not pasted", and Paste Last finds it.
• With Microphone access turned off while kotoba runs, the indicator says "Microphone access is off" with a button to open System Settings, and the silent recording is not sent or billed.
• The microphone opens again when its sample rate changes during a dictation, so the rest of the recording is not silent.
• New messages say what went wrong and keep the audio: "Secure connection blocked. Saved." (for example, a Wi-Fi sign-in page), "Couldn’t find . Saved." (a name that does not resolve, such as a mistyped Azure resource), and "Audio file is missing. Can’t retry."
• Azure: a 403 now says you are out of credit, not that the key is wrong.
• Your restored clipboard keeps its formats in their original order, so rich text pastes as rich text. File promises are skipped.
• Only one copy of kotoba runs. Opening it again brings up the running one.
• If you turn off Accessibility for kotoba, a dictation goes to the clipboard instead of pasting nowhere, and the shortcut works again as soon as you turn it back on.
• When the disk is full, the indicator says so, and kotoba pastes the part it saved.
• A clipboard over 64 MB is not kept: the dictation still pastes, and the indicator says the old clipboard was too large to keep.
• Paste works with the "Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘" keyboard layout and after you switch layouts.
• The microphone works again after it failed to start or after the macOS audio service restarted.
• kotoba no longer checks permissions every second while one of its windows is open.
• Setup: both ways to dictate are shown above the Try It field, the key links sit below the key field, and "Get a Key" is gone once a key is saved.
• Test Microphone says what it does before you click it. The transcribing indicator shows only the spinner.

kotoba 0.3.1

kotoba 0.3.1

• Separate shortcuts for Hands-free and Push to talk, in Settings > General. Hands-free: tap to start, tap again to stop and paste. Push to talk: hold while you speak, let go to paste. By default both use ⌃⌥⌘, which works as before.
• Push to talk can be one key alone: ⌥, ⌃, fn or a right-side modifier. A quick tap, a typed shortcut or a click while you hold it does not start a dictation.
• A quick double tap with nothing said is now ignored: no error and no History row.
• A silent recording shows "No speech heard", not "Couldn’t reach OpenRouter", and is not sent a second time.

kotoba 0.3.0

kotoba 0.3.0

• kotoba is now in the Dock as well as the menu bar. To hide either icon, go to Settings > General > Dock and Menu Bar. With the Dock icon off, it shows only while a kotoba window is open.
• One main window holds Home, History, Insights, Usage and all settings. Clicking the Dock icon or opening kotoba again shows the pane you used last.
• New start and stop sounds that no longer sound like the macOS alert. Choose Nylon, Low or Steel in Settings > General.
• A new first-run setup: a clearer welcome, Continue after each permission, and an optional Wispr Flow dictionary import.
• A saved OpenRouter key now shows as saved (masked), with Change… and Remove.
• Windows open in front of other apps.
• Test Microphone says why it could not start.
• Spacing, alignment and wording are more consistent across all panes.

kotoba 0.2.1

kotoba 0.2.1

• A recording you discard is never sent, even when kotoba could not delete its file.
• A dictation with no audio says “No speech heard” at once, and History no longer offers Retry for it.