Is VoiceInk on-device?
Short answer: yes for the part that matters most. VoiceInk states that it processes all voice transcription locally on your device and that your voice data never leaves your Mac. There is one qualification worth understanding before you decide, and it is the reason this page exists rather than a one-word answer: VoiceInk also has an optional feature called Cloud Enhancement, and when you switch it on, transcribed text is processed in the cloud. Your voice still is not. That distinction between audio and text is the whole question for anyone choosing on privacy grounds, and it sits inside the broader question of what on-device speech recognition actually means.
If you want no cloud path at all, not an optional one
Parakeety has no cloud feature to enable or leave off. It ships one model, the NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3, running through CoreML on the Apple Neural Engine, with no account, no sign-in and no server-side text processing anywhere in the product. $25 once, on macOS 14 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later). The cost of that is capability you might want: there is no AI cleanup pass, no reformatting step and no way to send a difficult recording to a larger model, because there is nowhere to send it.
What VoiceInk says, precisely
VoiceInk's own wording is unambiguous about audio: it processes all voice transcription locally on your device, and your voice data never leaves your Mac. It uses local AI models to transcribe what you say into text. On the audio question there is nothing to interpret.
Cloud Enhancement is the qualification. VoiceInk describes it as entirely optional, and says that only transcribed text, not your voice, is processed if you choose to enable it. So the feature exists, it is off unless you turn it on, and what it sends is the transcript rather than the recording.
Both halves are worth holding at once. Someone whose concern is that a recording of their voice could sit on a third-party server has a clear answer here. Someone whose concern is that the content of what they dictated could leave the machine has a conditional one, and the condition is a setting they control.
Local by default is not the same as no cloud path
There are three distinct architectures sold as privacy-respecting dictation, and they are not interchangeable. Cloud-first apps send audio away and give you a contract about what happens to it. Local-by-default apps transcribe on the machine and offer cloud features you can opt into. Local-by-architecture apps have no cloud path in the product at all.
VoiceInk is the middle one, and for most buyers that is the right trade: you get local transcription as the default and a cleanup feature available when a transcript needs it. The reason to care about the difference is that the middle option requires you to keep a setting correct, and the third does not require you to keep anything correct.
That is a question about your threat model rather than about product quality. If the risk you are managing is an accidental setting change on a shared or managed Mac, the distinction matters. If it is not, it does not.
What it runs on and what it costs
VoiceInk requires an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14.4 or later, so Intel Macs are out. It is sold as a one-time purchase with no subscription: Solo at $29 for one device, Personal at $49 for two, and Extended at $69 for three, each with lifetime updates and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
The device-count tiering is the part people miss when comparing prices. A straight comparison against another one-time app is only fair once you know how many Macs you need to cover.
| Question | VoiceInk | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Is voice transcribed locally? | Yes, always | Audio does not leave the Mac |
| Can any text leave the Mac? | Yes, if Cloud Enhancement is enabled | Transcript, not audio, and only on opt-in |
| Is there a cloud path in the product? | Yes, optional and off by default | A setting to keep correct rather than an absent feature |
| Hardware required | Apple Silicon, macOS 14.4 or later | Intel Macs are not supported |
| Pricing | $29 / $49 / $69 one-time by device count | No subscription; compare on device count, not headline price |
FAQ
- Does VoiceInk send my voice to the cloud?
- No. VoiceInk states that it processes all voice transcription locally on your device and that your voice data never leaves your Mac. The optional Cloud Enhancement feature processes transcribed text rather than audio, and only when you choose to enable it. So the recording itself stays on the machine in every configuration.
- What does VoiceInk Cloud Enhancement actually send?
- Transcribed text, not your voice. VoiceInk describes the feature as entirely optional and says only transcribed text is processed if you enable it. That is a meaningful difference from a cloud dictation app, which uploads the audio itself, but it does mean the content of what you dictated can leave the Mac once the feature is switched on.
- Does VoiceInk work on an Intel Mac?
- No. VoiceInk requires an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14.4 or later. Local speech models lean on the Neural Engine and unified memory that Apple Silicon provides, which is why most current on-device dictation apps for the Mac, including Parakeety, set the same floor.
- Is VoiceInk a subscription?
- No. VoiceInk is a one-time purchase with no recurring fee, priced by how many Macs you need: Solo at $29 for one device, Personal at $49 for two, and Extended at $69 for three. All tiers include lifetime updates and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Try it
Parakeety answers the same question with a shorter sentence, because there is less to qualify: there is no cloud feature in it at all. Hold the section key, talk, release, and the words paste at the cursor, transcribed on the Apple Neural Engine. No account, no sign-in, nothing to switch off. There is a free 7-day trial with no card required, and after that it is $25 once.