openless
Open-Less
Free push-to-talk voice input for macOS and Windows: hold a key, speak, get AI-polished text at your cursor.
What is openless?
An open-source push-to-talk voice input tool for macOS and Windows: hold a hotkey, speak, release, and AI-polished text is inserted at the cursor in any app. It offers four output modes (raw, light polish, structured AI-prompt, formal), cloud or local ASR (including a bundled Qwen3-ASR for offline use) and multiple polish providers, with a style-pack marketplace and streaming insertion.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Free, MIT, cross-platform (macOS and Windows) dictation that works in any app
- A local-ASR option (bundled Qwen3) for offline, private use
- A differentiated 'structured' mode that turns speech into ready-to-use AI prompts
Cons
- Ships from a 'beta' default branch with frequent beta builds, so stability guarantees are limited
- The best polish providers are cloud LLMs, so privacy depends on configuration
- The repo and README still reference the legacy appergb/openless path (now a redirect), a minor identity inconsistency
License
MIT (OSI-open)
When it is interesting
A free, open, hold-to-talk dictation tool that polishes speech into text or AI prompts across any app.
When it is too early
If you need a stable release channel; the default branch is beta and it iterates on rapid builds.
Commercial alternative & related
- Commercial counterpart: Wispr Flow
This repo featured in the 2026-07 edition of the Open-Source AI Radar.
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