Speak, and it's typed.
Select, and it's read.
Zarah AI is speech in both directions for macOS. Hold a key and talk — your words are cleaned up and pasted right where your cursor is, in any app. Select text and press ⌃⇧R — Zarah reads it aloud. 100% on your Mac.
You talk, it types. It reads, you listen.
Dictation was only half the story. Zarah now speaks too — select text in any app and hear it read aloud, in a voice you choose.
Dictate — speech to text
Hold your key (default Fn), speak, release. Clean text lands at your cursor — Mail, Slack, a brief, a code editor.
- On-device transcription — Apple's speech models, running on your Mac. Audio is never uploaded, full stop.
- Optional cleanup with guardrails — filler and grammar tidied; any edit that changes a number or drops a “not” is refused.
- Push-to-talk, toggle, or hybrid — hold to speak, tap to latch, or let Zarah figure out which you meant.
- Re-paste anytime — ⌃⇧V drops your last dictation at the cursor again.
Read Aloud — text to speech New
Select text anywhere — an email, a contract, a web page — and press ⌃⇧R. Zarah reads it to you.
- Apple voices, on-device — free, private, and the default. Nothing leaves your Mac.
- Grok voices, opt-in — five expressive hosted voices from xAI, using the same bring-your-own key as the Grok AI model. One key powers cleanup, Ask, and voices.
- Your pace — 0.5× to 2× reading speed. Press the hotkey again to stop; pause from the capsule.
- Proof-listening — with nothing selected, Zarah reads your last dictation back to you. Hear what you're about to send.
Edit anything, by saying so
Select text in any app, hold the Ask key, and say the change you want. Zarah rewrites the selection in place — your words, your instruction, no chat window.
- “Make it shorter.” “Sound friendlier.” “Turn this into bullet points.” — everyday edits, spoken in plain English.
- “Insert the mutual NDA clause.” Name your templates — signature blocks, boilerplate, clauses — and Zarah pastes the saved text verbatim. Matched by AI, never written by it.
- On-device by default — Apple's on-device model does the rewriting, or connect your own Claude, OpenAI, Grok, or Meta key. Off until you turn it on, in Settings.
Every hotkey, your hotkey
Fn not your style? Remap everything. Hold-style combos for talking, press-style chords for toggling — recorded in Settings exactly like you'd expect, with a warning if two shortcuts collide.
This is how remapping feels in the app — click, then press the shortcut you'd like.
Same rules as the app: a global shortcut needs ⌘, ⌥, or ⌃, so a bare letter can never be swallowed — and Zarah warns you before two actions end up on the same keys.
A voice box that never bluffs
While you dictate, the menu-bar icon becomes five red bars dancing to your actual microphone level. While Zarah reads, the bars dance to the voice. When the mic is hot but you're silent, a small shimmer says so.
It's a privacy feature disguised as a delight: you can always see, at a glance, when Zarah is hearing you — and when the mic is truly off.
Fast, private, and now in both directions
Everything that matters runs locally. The cloud is opt-in, off by default, and never hears your voice.
On-device speech-to-text
Apple's SpeechAnalyzer transcribes you right on your Mac. Your voice is never uploaded, recorded, or sent anywhere — regardless of any setting.
Cleaned up, not literal
Optional grammar cleanup turns "um, send it, you know, tomorrow" into a clean sentence — with guardrails that refuse any edit that changes a number or drops a "not".
Paste anywhere
Mail, Slack, Notion, a code editor — Zarah types into whatever app holds your cursor. No copy-paste, no switching windows.
Read Aloud New
Select text anywhere and press ⌃⇧R. Free Apple voices on-device — or expressive Grok voices with your own xAI key. Nothing selected? It reads your last dictation back.
Ask — edit by voice New
Hold a key, say "make it shorter" or "insert my signature block", and your selection is rewritten — or your saved template pasted verbatim — right in place.
Hotkeys, your way New
Dictation, Read Aloud, Ask, and Re-paste are all rebindable — hold-style or press-style, captured with an in-app recorder that warns about conflicts.
Live voice box New
The menu-bar icon meters your real microphone while you dictate and dances while Zarah reads — so you always know when the mic is hot.
Encrypted local history
Every dictation is saved to a searchable history that's encrypted and stays on this Mac — never synced, never backed up to anyone's servers.
Bring your own AI (optional)
Prefer a frontier model for cleanup, Ask, or voices? Connect your own Claude, OpenAI, Grok (xAI), or Meta key. Off by default — and even then, only text is sent, never audio.
Three keystrokes, either direction
Hold the key & talk
Press and hold your hotkey anywhere in macOS. The floating capsule appears and starts listening on-device.
Release
Let go and Zarah transcribes, then (optionally) tidies grammar and filler — preserving every number and negation.
It's pasted
Your clean text lands at the cursor in whatever app you're in, and the session is saved to your encrypted local history.
Select text
In any app — an email you received, a brief, a web page, or nothing at all to hear your last dictation.
Press ⌃⇧R
Or whatever you've remapped it to. Press again to stop, or pause and resume from the capsule.
Zarah reads it
In an Apple on-device voice — or a Grok voice, if you've connected your own xAI key. Speed is yours, 0.5×–2×.
Your voice stays yours
Zarah isn't "private" as a policy — it's private by design. The audio path has no exit off your machine.
Audio never transmitted
Speech recognition happens entirely on-device via Apple's models. There is no server that hears you, by design. Text leaves your Mac only if you connect a cloud model or Grok voices — and it says so, clearly, where you turn it on.
Keys in the Keychain
If you opt into a cloud model or Grok voices, your API key is stored in the macOS Keychain — this-device-only, never synced or backed up. One xAI key covers cleanup, Ask, and voices.
You can see every connection
Zarah only reaches the network to sign you in, check your license about once a day, and optionally check for updates — never to send your audio. The in-app Trust panel keeps an honest count, and the menu-bar voice box shows you exactly when the mic is live.
Shipping quickly, honestly
Three releases in three days. Updates install from inside the app — or grab the latest below.
- Custom hotkeys for everything — dictation, Read Aloud, Ask, and Re-paste can each be rebound: hold-style modifier combos or press-style chords, captured with a native key recorder in Settings.
- Conflict detection — Zarah warns you the moment two shortcuts would collide, before they fight over a keypress.
- Safe by construction — a global chord requires ⌘, ⌥, or ⌃, so a bare letter can never be stolen from your typing.
- Grok voices for Read Aloud — Ara, Eve, Leo, Rex, and Sal (xAI-hosted, opt-in) join the free on-device Apple voices, using the same bring-your-own key as the Grok AI model.
- Live menu-bar voice box — five bars metering your real mic while dictating, dancing while Zarah speaks, shimmering when the mic is hot but hearing nothing.
- Settings, redesigned around two directions — everything that shapes dictation in one place, everything about listening in the other.
- Meta joins the BYO roster — alongside Claude, OpenAI, and Grok for cleanup and Ask.
- Read Aloud reliability — fixed a case where holding the chord a beat too long could read the wrong text; downloads now ship from cdn.zarah.ai for faster installs.
- Read Aloud — select text in any app and press ⌃⇧R; Zarah reads it in an on-device Apple voice. Press again to stop, pause from the capsule, 0.5×–2× speed.
- Proof-listening — with nothing selected, Zarah reads your last dictation back before you send it.
One plan. Everything included.
- Unlimited on-device dictation
- Read Aloud — Apple on-device voices, or Grok voices with your key
- Ask — rewrite any selection by voice, plus verbatim templates
- Grammar cleanup & rewrite with word-preserving guardrails
- Custom hotkeys for every action
- Encrypted local history & search
- Bring-your-own cloud model support (Claude, OpenAI, Grok, Meta)
- All future updates
Good questions
Is my voice really never uploaded?
Correct. Speech-to-text runs on-device with Apple's speech models — the audio never leaves your Mac, regardless of any setting. The only optional cloud features send already-transcribed text (never audio) to a provider you connect — for grammar cleanup, Ask, or Grok voices — and they're off by default.
What is Read Aloud?
Zarah in the other direction. Select text in any app and press ⌃⇧R (or your own shortcut) and Zarah reads it aloud — press again to stop, pause from the capsule, and set the speed from 0.5× to 2×. It uses free Apple voices entirely on-device by default. If you've connected your own xAI key, you can opt into Grok's hosted voices — Ara, Eve, Leo, Rex, and Sal — which sends the selected text (only) to xAI to be spoken. With nothing selected, it reads back your last dictation, which is a great last check before you hit send.
What does the Ask hotkey do?
Select text, hold the Ask key, and say what you want: "make it shorter", "sound friendlier", "turn this into bullet points". Zarah rewrites the selection in place using the on-device model — or your own connected AI. You can also keep named templates (a signature block, an NDA clause) and say "insert the mutual NDA clause" — the saved text is pasted verbatim; the AI only picks which template you meant, it never writes one. Ask is off by default; enable it in Settings.
Can I change the hotkeys?
Yes — all of them, as of 0.9.13. Dictation can be a held combo (like Fn or Right ⌘) or a press-to-toggle chord; Read Aloud and Re-paste use chords you record in Settings; Ask uses a held combo. The recorder captures exactly what you press, requires at least one of ⌘/⌥/⌃ so normal typing is never intercepted, and warns you if two shortcuts collide.
What do I need to run it?
macOS 26 or later on an Apple-silicon Mac. Zarah lives in your menu bar and asks for Microphone, Accessibility, and Input Monitoring permissions on first launch so it can hear you, paste for you, and arm the global hotkey.
Which apps does it work in?
Any of them. Because Zarah pastes via macOS Accessibility, it types into Mail, Slack, browsers, editors, your notes app — wherever your cursor is. Read Aloud and Ask work on selections in those same apps.
How does the free trial work?
Download Zarah, sign in to start your 14-day free trial, and use it fully during that time. After the trial, a subscription ($49/year) keeps it running. You can subscribe anytime from inside the app or here on the site.
Can I use my own AI model?
Yes. For grammar cleanup and Ask you can connect your own Claude (Anthropic), OpenAI, Grok (xAI), or Meta account instead of the on-device model — and the same xAI key also unlocks Grok voices for Read Aloud. It's clearly labeled and off by default; the word-preserving guardrails apply to cloud models exactly as they do on-device.
Try Zarah AI free for 14 days
Download for macOS, sign in to start your free trial, and grant three permissions. No charge until you subscribe.
↓ Download for macOSVersion 0.9.13 · Requires macOS 26 · Apple Silicon · Notarized by Mylo Prime LLC