Voice dictation
for Mail.
Email is the slowest thing most people type all day. Dictation makes it 3-5× faster — but only if your tool understands that Mail messages need a formal register, full sentences, and a signoff. Generic cleanup writes Slack-grade prose into Mail; cloud-based tools (Wispr Flow) ship the contents of your inbox to OpenAI. Dollop handles both: free, on-device, with a Formal tone preset for Mail and Gmail out of the box.
Email isn't Slack. The cleanup model needs to keep your sentences full, your tone professional, your signoffs intact. Most general dictation tools don't get this right by default.
Email cleanup should keep capitalization, punctuation, and full sentences. Not "yeah sounds good lmk" — "Sounds good. Let me know when you have time." Dollop's Formal tone preset is automatically applied when you dictate into Mail, Gmail, Outlook, Spark, or Superhuman.
Email is among the most sensitive content most people produce — client work, contracts, legal threads, personal correspondence. Cloud-based dictation tools route this through OpenAI / Anthropic / Cerebras. On-device tools keep it local.
Saying "email signature" to drop your full block, or "meeting confirm" to insert a templated yes-confirmation, makes repeat email patterns 4-5× faster. Dollop matches snippets before the cleanup pass; very few other tools do.
Custom vocabulary for everyone you email regularly is the difference between dictation that works and dictation you have to manually correct every time. Dollop's vocabulary list handles this; cloud LLMs guess and miss anything not in their training data.
Most comparison pages list ten features. Three of them matter when you're actually switching.
- Where does the audio go?
- On-device means your voice and the transcript stay on the Mac you're typing on. Cloud means audio is uploaded, transcribed remotely, and the text is downloaded back — usually with no way to know which providers see it on the way through. This is load-bearing for anyone touching client work, regulated content, or proprietary information.
- How much RAM does it actually take?
- The forgotten metric. "On-device" doesn't mean "free" — Whisper-based tools load 700 MB to 3 GB into memory while running. If you already have Cursor, Chrome, Slack, and a Docker container open, that matters. Apple Foundation Models is the only path right now to real on-device dictation at 0 GB.
- How clean is the cleaned text?
- Raw transcription is a solved problem — Whisper, Parakeet, and Apple's models are all excellent. The differentiator is what happens after: filler removal, punctuation, formatting commands, tone-matching to the active app. A tuned dictation model beats a generic LLM polish step every time.
| Tool | RAM | Audio leaves Mac? | Pricing | Cleanup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dollop | 0 GB | Never | Free | Tuned LoRA |
| Superwhisper | ~1.5 GB | Optional | $249 once | Generic LLM |
| Voibe | ~700 MB | Never | $9.90/mo | Whisper + rules |
| VoiceInk | ~2 GB | Never | Free / open-source | Optional |
| MacWhisper | ~1–3 GB | Never | €64 once | File-based |
| LumeVoice | ~700 MB | Never | Subscription | Whisper |
| Apple Dictation | ~0 GB | Never (Ventura+) | Free (built-in) | None |
RAM figures are approximate, measured at idle with the smallest model loaded. Dollop uses Apple Foundation Models — the OS keeps the model warm independently of the app, so the app itself contributes 0 GB beyond the OS baseline.
Dollop
Dollop is the voice OS I built for the Mac. It does four things, all on-device, all free: dictation (clean text pasted at your cursor in any app), an AI chat overlay (multi-turn, optionally screen-aware) for asking questions or rewriting, Little Overlay (⌃ A — a tiny floating glass pill that hears your selection, sees your screen, and answers in place for the one-shot question that doesn’t need a chat thread), and Meeting Notes (record and transcribe lectures, calls, and meetings with summaries and action items, fully on-device). It runs on Apple Foundation Models, the on-device LLM Apple ships with macOS 26, and ships with a tuned cleanup adapter trained specifically for the way people actually speak. Because Apple already keeps the foundation model warm in the OS, Dollop contributes 0 GB to your RAM footprint. Your audio never leaves the Mac. Completely free.
- Four pillars in one app: dictation, AI chat, Little Overlay, Meeting Notes
- Only Mac dictation app on Apple Foundation Models
- 0 GB RAM cost, the OS hosts the model
- Tuned cleanup adapter, not a generic polish step
- Meeting Notes: record + transcribe + summarize on-device
- Per-app tone (Casual / Formal / Excited)
- Completely free, no subscription, no premium tier
- Apple Silicon + macOS 26 only, no Intel, no Windows
- Apple Intelligence must be enabled
- New product, smaller community than Wispr or Superwhisper
Voibe
$9.90/month, on-device, sub-300ms latency. Works in Mail and Gmail. No per-app tone matching — same cleanup style everywhere.
Apple Dictation
Built into macOS. Works in Mail's text fields. No cleanup or formatting commands — but for raw thought capture into a draft, it's free and zero-setup.
Superwhisper
$249 one-time, ~1.5 GB RAM. Works in Mail. Generic LLM polish doesn't tone-match per-app.
VoiceInk
Free, open-source. Works in Mail's text fields. More setup than Dollop.
Wispr Flow
Cloud, $15/month. Routes the contents of your email through OpenAI / Anthropic / Cerebras. For most people, that's the strongest reason to skip cloud dictation entirely.
- Email content leaves your Mac
- $15/mo
- Privacy crisis in early 2026
Hard requirement: Dollop runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 26 or later. Most Macs sold since 2021 qualify. If you're on Intel, that's the constraint to plan around.
What's the best dictation app for Mail and Gmail on Mac?
Is dictating emails a privacy risk?
How do I make dictation match Mail's formal register?
What does Dollop actually do?
How much does Dollop cost?
Does Dollop work without an internet connection?
Can Dollop record and transcribe meetings or lectures?
Will Dollop work on Intel Macs?
Can I dictate into Cursor, VS Code, Slack, and other apps?
Can I dictate into the To, Subject, and Body fields?
Does Gmail-in-the-browser work?
For Mail dictation on Mac, Dollop is the right pick. Free, on-device, with Formal tone matching that fits email's professional register. No more drafts that read like Slack messages.
Cloud dictation tools route your email content to third-party AI providers — for most people, that alone is the reason to stay on-device.