I spend a lot of time reading and typing on my MacBook. For a while, I used two separate apps for this: one for dictation and another for reading text aloud. Both worked well, but each required a subscription.
So I built Univocal, a local-only dictation and read-aloud app that brings one workflow across all the apps, with bilingual support, text highlighting, and lifetime access for a one-time purchase.
Read-aloud: select text and Univocal reads it aloud, highlighting each word as it's spoken so you can follow along with your eyes and ears. It's useful for long articles and dense documents, or verbose answers by AI.
Dictation: speak, and the text appears wherever your cursor is: email, notes, chat, or other apps where you'd normally type. Write a draft by voice, then have it read back to you.
Mixed-language support: Univocal supports mixed-language text for reading and mixed-language speech for dictation. Results vary with the language pair and content, so I'd encourage you to try it with your own sentences.
On-device processing: your text and voice are processed on your Mac rather than sent to a cloud speech service. After downloading the required models and completing setup, the speech features work offline. Model downloads, license activation/checks, and updates require internet access.
One-time purchase: one license covers up to three Macs, with no subscription or usage caps. Requires Apple silicon and macOS 14 or later. There's a full 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
