I got tired of typing, so I built a free, offline voice-typing tool (open source, contributors wanted)

I built YazSes: hold a key, speak, release, and your words are typed into whatever app has focus. It runs speech-to-text locally (faster-whisper on CPU), so nothing leaves your machine: no cloud, no account, no API key.

Install

Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MSKazemi/yazses/main/install.sh | bash 

Snap

sudo snap install yazses sudo snap connect yazses:audio-record # microphone sudo snap connect yazses:raw-input # hold-to-talk key 

macOS (Apple Silicon)

brew tap MSKazemi/yazses && brew trust MSKazemi/yazses && brew install --cask yazses 

Windows

winget install MSKazemi.YazSes 

Any OS with Python 3.11+

pipx install yazses 

Then:

yazses quickstart # 3 steps tailored to your machine, read-only yazses doctor # verify microphone, hotkey and text injection 

Why offline?

• Your voice never leaves the machine.
• No subscription, no API key, works without internet.
• It also transcribes recordings and captures meetings with speaker labels, locally.

Links

• GitHub (stars welcome): https://github.com/MSKazemi/yazses
• Install guides: Linux · macOS · Windows
• Docs: https://mskazemi.com/yazses

Which OS are you on? Tell me what breaks and I'll fix it.

Want to contribute? Here is where you can help in 15 minutes

You do not need to be a speech-recognition expert. Real, open tasks right now:

• 🌍 Native speaker of Persian, Urdu, Thai, Vietnamese, Telugu, Ukrainian, Traditional Chinese...? Several translations of the docs have never been read by a native speaker. Fixing a sentence is a valid first PR.
• 🧪 Pick a good first issue: https://github.com/MSKazemi/yazses/labels/good%20first%20issue
• 🐧 Test it on your distro / desktop (Wayland, X11, Windows, macOS) and open an issue with the output of yazses doctor. Bug reports from real machines are gold.
• 📖 Read the guide: https://github.com/MSKazemi/yazses/blob/main/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md

The test suite runs offline (no microphone, no model download), so you can run it in a minute:

uv sync uv run python -m pytest tests/ -v 

Try it, then tell me

1. ⭐ Star the repo so others can find it: https://github.com/MSKazemi/yazses
2. ⬇️ Install it with the one-liner above and run yazses doctor.
3. 💬 Comment below with your OS and what happened. I reply to every comment.