In Mail, Messages, Notes, Slack or any text field. One shortcut, your voice, and the sentence appears exactly where the cursor is — no window to switch to, no copy and paste.
Simulated demo — no microphone is used
What makes Aria different
Most tools want to “improve” what you said. Aria starts by respecting your words, your language and the place where you are working.
Faithful by default
Aria can restore a capital letter or a full stop locally. It only summarises, translates or rewrites when you explicitly ask for it.
Confirming our meeting tomorrow at ten. Feel free to add Lea to the invitation.
Language preserved
Automatic detection can be guided by the languages you actually use. For an email entirely in English, you can also lock the language so nothing drifts.
Memory with guardrails
A name, a brand or a piece of jargon that keeps coming out wrong can be learned, without giving Aria permission to rewrite everything else. “Grok” becomes “Groq” where it matters.
Smart fallback
A long dictation is not a failure. Aria gives the cloud more time when you speak for longer, and only falls back to the local engine when a real failure is likely.
Your engine stays selected.
This dictation is saved on the Mac.
Your original choice takes over again.
Adaptive timeout: about 20 s for a short dictation, up to 72 s for two minutes of speech — before the local fallback is even considered.
Your speed, your privacy
Maximum accuracy, instant response, or zero network. You choose, Aria adapts.
AirPods, USB, Bluetooth
Aria follows macOS or your explicit choice. A device that disconnects falls back cleanly to the system microphone, without interrupting a dictation already in progress.
Privacy you can actually read
The mode you pick states plainly what stays on the Mac and what reaches your cloud provider.
With Parakeet, neither the audio nor the transcript leaves your computer.
The bundled Groq mode uses a key held on the server. Your own optional keys stay encrypted in the macOS Keychain.
Keep it, cap it or switch it off, depending on how private you need to be.
Local screen reading for proper nouns can be disabled at any time.
Pseudonymous usage statistics inside Aria are off by default. If you turn them on, only counters and a random identifier are shared: never audio, text, email, name or hardware identifier. Opting out deletes the related aggregates. This website sends neither page views nor download clicks.
A tool that disappears
Aria lives in the menu bar. It steps in on the shortcut, writes at the cursor, and hands you straight back to the app you were working in.
“Good dictation should never force you to change application.”
Simple and final
The free plan resets every Monday. Pro is a one-time purchase: no monthly fee, no future price rise, all updates included.
Version 2.61.0
Pick your Mac. The DMG contains only the compiled app, its resources and the install instructions — never the development repository.
Native arm64 build for MacBook, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro with an Apple chip.
Download the DMGSeparate x64 build for Macs sold before the transition to Apple chips.
Download the DMG⚠︎Expected warning: this build is checked with SHA-256 and carries a stable signing identity, but it is not notarised by Apple yet. Only bypass Gatekeeper for downloads coming from this site and the official GitHub repository.
Yes. With the local engine the audio stays on the Mac and nothing is sent anywhere. Aria Free still needs a brief connection to check the weekly word counter.
No. The transcript keeps the language you spoke. Transformations such as Email or Key points only apply when you choose them.
Aria types at the cursor, so it works in Mail, Messages, Notes, Slack, Teams, browsers, code editors and any standard macOS text field.
Not with the local mode. For now the Groq mode can run with no key to enter; the audio then travels through a rate-limited Aria relay to Groq, with no storage of audio or text. A personal key remains possible for the other optional services.
Aria Free includes 2,000 words per week and resets every Monday on server time. A brief connection is needed to check the counter; reinstalling the app or changing the Mac clock does not create a new quota.
No. It is a one-time purchase giving lifetime access to Aria Pro on three Macs, with unlimited words and all future updates included.
The cloud timeout grows with the recorded duration. Two minutes of speech gets a far longer allowance than a short sentence before the local fallback is even considered.
Yes. Aria can follow the microphone chosen in macOS, or use a device you select explicitly in its settings.
Aria is signed but not yet notarised by Apple. After a first open attempt, use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. The upcoming Developer ID build removes this step.
Aria checks the public manifest at launch and then every six hours. It resumes the download of the DMG matching your Mac when needed, checks its size, its SHA-256 and its Apple identity, then updates the app in place. If the new version fails to start, Aria restores the previous one automatically.
Three numbers, kept apart. Downloads of the “Installer” file in this repository count downloads from the website; downloads of the identical file without “Installer” count automatic updates. To know how many Macs really run Aria, the app downloads an empty file from GitHub on first launch, on each new version and once per week of use: GitHub only publishes the total, with no identifier, text or setting. This counter can be turned off in Settings → Data. Detailed sharing of launches and dictations stays off unless you turn it on.
Contact
Install, licence, refund or suggestion: your message reaches the Aria team directly.
Install, licence or suggestion: open an issue on the public repository. Please do not paste an API key, a dictation or any other personal data there.
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