Every dictation, kept and searchable
Transcripts has its own tab. Find anything you’ve said, see which app it went to, and copy it again — all stored on your Mac.
Think out loud.
Nobody’s listening.
Press a key, speak, and your words appear wherever you type. Pillo runs entirely on your Mac — no cloud, no account.
In action
Talk the way you think.
Pillo does the typing.
Your words land in the app you’re already in — with paragraphs, punctuation and numbers as digits, as if you’d typed them yourself.
How it works
Three steps.
You already know them.
One key, your voice, and the app you’re already in. That’s the whole setup — no account, nothing to learn.
PressStep 1 of 3
One key starts it.
Double-tap the Right Option key and Pillo starts listening. Tap it once more to stop — or hold the key while you talk.
Listening…
SpeakStep 2 of 3
Talk like you’d talk.
Pause, ramble, start a sentence over. The Dictation Preview shows your words while you speak.
MicrophoneAuto (Smart)
Dictation Preview
Okay so for Thursday — the build is ready for QA, the export fix is in, and the new onboarding looks good
DoneStep 3 of 3
Right where you type.
Your words appear at the cursor — in Mail, Slack, Notes or your code editor. With punctuation and paragraphs, as if you’d typed them.
Thursday
The build is ready for QA. Three things changed: the export fix, the new onboarding and dark mode.
If anything looks risky, we move the release to Friday.
Anywhere there’s a cursor
MailSlackNotesMessagesYour code editor
Every app
Works everywhere
you can type.
Mail, Slack, WhatsApp, Notion, your code editor. If there’s a text cursor, Pillo writes there.
Formatting
Your words, shaped
the way you said them.
Speech doesn’t come with line breaks. Pillo adds them — and the rest of what turns talking into writing.
Reply to Priya Nair
You say
Um, I think we should uh move the call to Thursday. Would that work for you?
Um, I think we should uh move the call to Thursday. Would that work for you?
I think we should move the call to Thursday. Would that work for you?
“Um” and “uh” disappear. Every other word stays as you said it. Off by default — turn it on in Format.
Features
Everything else,
quietly handled.
The parts you notice after a week: it knows your words, keeps what you said, and never makes you wait.
Teach it your words
Names, places, jargon. Type a word once; Pillo gets it right from then on.
- Halvorsensounds like halverson
- Kubernetessounds like cooper netties
- Blaubeurer
- Zermatt
- quinoasounds like keen-wah
Ready the moment you are
The speech model stays loaded. Press the key after a night away and Pillo is already listening.
See your week
Time saved, how fast you speak, how many days in a row. Counted on your Mac, for you.
Time Saved
1.3 h
vs. typing at ~38 wpm
Speech Pace
158 wpm
About the pace of a keynote
Day Streak
30 Days
Highest streak: 30 days
Make the pill yours
Pick a waveform colour, park the pill anywhere on screen, choose how big the preview is. Try a colour.
- Bright and dark mode
- Any microphone — even your iPhone
- Your clipboard, put back after every paste
- Updates itself
Privacy
Only your Mac
hears what you say.
Speech becomes text right on your Mac. Your voice, your transcripts and your dictionary never leave it.
Early users
People are talking.
Out loud, of course.
This month using pillo saved me 9.4 hours in total. I use it every day. Love it.
I love that I can talk normally without thinking of not using too many ‘eh’s and ‘hm’s because Pillo will delete those filler words afterwards for me. I’m so happy.
I love the dictionary. No more wrong words
Pillo gives me the simplicity of voice messages with the convenience of written text.
Love that i can change to color of the Pill :)
Is Pillo really free?
Yes. Pillo is free while it’s in beta — no trial, no account, no card.
Does it work offline?
Yes. You need the internet once, to download Pillo and its speech model. After that, dictation runs entirely on your Mac — on a plane, in a basement, anywhere.
Which Macs does it run on?
Any Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) running macOS 15 Sequoia or later.
Which languages does it understand?
Pillo writes in whatever language you speak. Its speech model covers around 25 European languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Portuguese. The app itself is in English and German.
How do I start dictating?
Click where the text should go, double-tap the Right Option key and talk. Tap it again to finish. You can also hold the key while you speak, or pick a different key in Settings.
Where do my transcripts go?
Nowhere. They stay on your Mac, where you can search, copy or edit them in the Transcripts tab — and delete some or all of them in Settings.
Does Pillo send anything at all?
Only if you allow it. During setup, Pillo asks whether it may send anonymous error logs — crash traces, OS and app version, usage counts. Your audio, your transcripts and the apps you type into are never sent. The details are in the privacy policy.
How do updates work?
Pillo updates itself. It asks before it checks for new versions automatically, and you can always choose “Check for Updates…” from its menu bar icon. Every update is signed, so only real Pillo releases install.
Ready when
you are.
Free during beta. No account, no card, no cloud.