Rewrite any text, in any app, instantly. No copy-paste. No switching windows. Just a hotkey.
Select text anywhere → press Alt+Shift+W → AI rewrites it and pastes it back. Done.
Works in Gmail, Notion, Slack, Word, VS Code, Discord — every app on your computer.
Most AI writing tools require you to open a browser tab, paste your text, wait, copy the result, switch back, and paste again. That's 7 steps.
Hotkeys does it in 1 step — without leaving whatever you're typing in.
It lives in your system tray and gives you two superpowers:
🖊️ AI Text Refiner — select any text, press a hotkey, it's rewritten and pasted back in under a second
🎙️ Voice to Text — press a hotkey, speak, your words appear wherever your cursor is — fully offline
Demo GIF coming soon — select text → press hotkey → text rewritten in place
This is what makes Hotkeys genuinely useful. Build a personal library of reusable AI instructions:
| Prompt | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fix grammar | Silently fixes typos and grammar without changing your tone |
| Make professional | Rewrites casual text into formal language |
| Make shorter | Trims your text down without losing meaning |
| Translate to Spanish | Instantly translates in place |
| Bullet points | Converts a wall of text into a clean list |
| ELI5 | Rewrites complex text in simple language |
One click on any prompt → applied → pasted back. Build as many as you want.
| Feature | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| ✍️ | AI text refiner | Works in any app, any text field |
| 📚 | Prompt library | Save unlimited reusable AI prompts |
| 🔍 | Prompt search | Find prompts instantly as you type |
| 🔄 | Drag to reorder | Organise prompts by drag and drop |
| 🎙️ | Voice to text | Fully offline, no data sent anywhere |
| 🔇 | Noise reduction | Works in noisy environments |
| 🚀 | Push-to-talk | Hold to record, release to transcribe |
| 📋 | Transcription history | Browse and copy past recordings |
| ⚡ | Instant paste | Output types directly where your cursor is |
| 🖥️ | System tray | Zero UI clutter, always available |
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Start / stop voice recording | Ctrl + Enter |
| Refine selected text with AI | Alt + Shift + W |
| Open prompt library | Alt + Shift + E |
| Cancel recording | Escape |
All hotkeys are customisable in Settings.
- Download Hotkeys-v1.0-win64.zip
- Extract the zip anywhere
- Double-click
Hotkeys.exe - The ⚡HK icon appears in your taskbar tray — you're done
No Python. No pip. No dependencies. It just works.
- Download install_mac.command
- Right-click it → Open → click Open again (Mac security prompt)
- A terminal window installs everything automatically (~10 min, 600 MB models)
- Grant keyboard permission when prompted (one-time, 30 seconds)
- Double-click Hotkeys.command on your Desktop — done
Hotkeys uses Cerebras or Groq for text refinement. Both are free and take 2 minutes to set up.
| Provider | Speed | Free tier | Sign up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cerebras | ~0.3s | ✅ Yes | cerebras.ai |
| Groq | ~0.5s | ✅ Yes | console.groq.com |
Sign up → copy your API key → paste it in Hotkeys Settings. Done.
Voice-to-text works without any API key — it runs fully offline on your device.
- 🔒 Voice is transcribed locally — the Whisper model runs on your computer, nothing is sent to any server
- 🌐 Text refinement goes to Cerebras or Groq — same as any AI assistant you already use
- 🚫 No analytics, no telemetry, no account required
git clone https://github.com/sprawf/hotkeys.git
cd hotkeys
# Windows
python -m venv venv
venv\Scripts\pip install -r requirements.txt
venv\Scripts\python main.py
# Mac / Linux
python3 -m venv venv
venv/bin/pip install -r requirements_mac.txt
venv/bin/python3 main.py| Component | Library |
|---|---|
| UI | CustomTkinter |
| Speech-to-text | faster-whisper (runs offline) |
| Voice activity detection | Silero VAD |
| AI text refinement | Cerebras / Groq API |
| Global hotkeys | keyboard |
| System tray | pystray |
| Packaging | PyInstaller |
MIT — free to use, fork, and build on.
If this saved you time, consider leaving a ⭐ — it helps others find it.