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Steno icon

Steno

Steno is a native macOS menu bar app that turns your voice into text instantly. Hold a hotkey, speak, release — your words appear at the cursor in any application. Steno delivers sub-second transcription with over 95% accuracy. The entire app is just 1.

Dashboard showing today's stats (1,400 words, 79 sessions, 264 WPM) and all-time usage. AI Commands let you speak instructions like "Reply to this saying I'll be there at 5" and Steno writes the response

Cost / License

  • Freemium (Subscription)
  • Proprietary

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac
Full history of every dictation with word count, WPM speed, and transcription time. Copy any past entry with one click.
Settings panel with recording options (continuous mode, floating overlay, silence alerts), voice commands for hands-free punctuation, multi-language support, and voice isolation to filter background noise.
+2
Simple setup: hold the Control key, speak, release. Text appears at your cursor instantly. No complicated UI — just a single key.
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Features

Properties

  1.  Privacy focused
  2.  Lightweight

Features

  1.  No Tracking
  2.  No Coding Required
  3.  Text to Speech
  4.  Spell Checking
  5.  Ad-free
  6.  Speech Transcription
  7.  AI Writing
  8.  Voice to Text
  9.  Dictation
  10.  Speech Recognition

 Tags

Steno News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent activities

Steno information

  • Licensing

    Proprietary and Freemium product.

  • Pricing

    Subscription ranging between $5 and $35 per month + free version with limited functionality.

  • Alternatives

    9 alternatives listed

  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • Hindi
    • Spanish
    • French
    • German
    • Portuguese
Steno was added to AlternativeTo by Steno on and this page was last updated .
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What is Steno?

Steno is a native macOS menu bar app that turns your voice into text instantly. Hold a hotkey, speak, release — your words appear at the cursor in any application. Steno delivers sub-second transcription with over 95% accuracy. The entire app is just 1.7MB — no Electron, no bloat. Features include smart rewrite (AI-powered text cleanup that adapts to context like Slack vs email vs code editor), voice commands for punctuation and formatting, meeting mode with speaker diarization, custom vocabulary for technical terms, and optional offline mode. Works system-wide in every Mac app.

Official Links