tawktype

TawkType is a privacy-focused voice typing application for Windows 10 and 11. It allows users to dictate text into any application by holding a hotkey (default: Right Ctrl), speaking, and releasing. The core value proposition is that speech recognition runs entirely on the user's machine, meaning no audio or text leaves the computer unless the optional Claude AI rewrite feature is enabled. Key Features: - **Local Engines**: Supports NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 (optimized for English and European languages) and OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo (for other languages). Users can choose the engine or let the app decide. - **Text Modes**: Offers four modes: Literal (raw output), Clean prose (tidied up), Chat (lowercase, no spaces), and Technical (preserves acronyms). These modes work locally without AI. - **Smart Integration**: Detects the context around the cursor to avoid double spaces or mid-sentence capitals. Checks if the focused window accepts text; if not, it copies to the clipboard. - **History & Correction**: Keeps a local history of dictations. Users can search, edit, and create permanent corrections for misheard words. A 'dictation box' appears if text fails to land, allowing manual copying or sending. - **AI Cleanup (Optional)**: With an Anthropic API key, dictations can be rewritten by Claude to fix spoken corrections (e.g., "no wait, make that Tuesday") and format lists. This is the only step that sends data to the cloud. - **Privacy & Control**: No accounts, subscriptions, or telemetry. The status bar clearly indicates whether processing is Local or Cloud. Data is stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\TawkType, and uninstallation does not automatically delete user data unless specified. Installation: Download the installer from GitHub releases. It installs per-user without administrator rights. Speech models are downloaded separately during the first-run setup to avoid large initial install sizes. The app requires .NET 8 Desktop Runtime. Performance: Parakeet is CPU-only and efficient, while Whisper can use GPU (Vulkan) for faster processing. The app is designed to be lightweight, with minimal resource usage when idle.