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v0.1.0-preview.11 · Verify SHA-256 · First-launch guide

Note

This is a Preview. The DMG uses an ad-hoc local development signature: it is not signed with an Apple Developer ID and not notarized by Apple. macOS blocks the first launch until you choose Open Anyway in System Settings → Privacy & Security; see the first-launch guide.

Flowtype is a local-first macOS dictation app. Hold Fn and speak; release it, and Flowtype transcribes on this Mac and places the whole sentence at the cursor of the app you were using. It is built for the way people actually talk: switching languages mid-sentence, and even reading formulas aloud.

flowtype-dawn-launch-suno-en-readme_v3.mp4

How it works

1. Put the cursor where you want to type, in any app.
2. Hold Fn and speak. The recording capsule appears at the bottom of the screen, its Dawn waveform following your voice.
3. Release Fn. Flowtype transcribes on your Mac and the whole sentence lands at the cursor in one go.

No window switching, no copy and paste.

Faster than typing

These are the author's own everyday numbers as of 2026-10-12: 21,578 dictations, 63 h 9 min of speech, 1.005 million characters and words. Typing the same text would take an estimated 315 hours, so Flowtype saved about 251 h 37 min. Flowtype was a tool its author used every day before it became an open-source project.

_{Typing time is estimated at 55 Chinese characters or 35 English words per minute, minus the speaking time. Chinese is counted by character, English by word.}

30+ languages, mixed freely

Real speech is rarely one language at a time. Flowtype runs Qwen3-ASR on your Mac and never locks you into one language: the model works out what you are speaking, across 30+ languages and 22 Chinese dialects. Switch languages mid-sentence, for example English inside Chinese, without switching modes.

Names and terms that must be written a particular way, such as a product name, a colleague's name or a word from your field, may not come out as you want on their own. Add each one to the Dictionary exactly as you want it written. Flowtype passes those entries to the local model as context, so they are much more likely to come out in your spelling and capitalisation.

Say it. Get the formula.

Turn on spoken math and read formulas aloud; Flowtype turns them into real mathematical notation on your Mac. Choose Unicode (plain text symbols that work anywhere) or LaTeX (for Markdown, Obsidian and papers).

More examples:

You say	Unicode output	LaTeX output (rendered)
the regression model is y equals beta zero plus beta one x plus epsilon	the regression model is y = β₀ + β₁x + ε	the regression model is $y = \beta_0 + \beta_1 x + \epsilon$
x follows a normal distribution with mean mu and variance sigma squared	X ∼ N(μ, σ²)	$X \sim N(\mu, \sigma^2)$
the confidence interval is x bar plus or minus z sub alpha over two times sigma over root n	the confidence interval is x̄ ± z_{α/2}·σ/√n	the confidence interval is $\bar{x} \pm z_{\alpha/2} \cdot \frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}$
so theta hat is an unbiased estimator of theta	so θ̂ is an unbiased estimator of θ	so $\hat{\theta}$ is an unbiased estimator of $\theta$
the variance of beta one hat equals sigma squared over n	Var(β̂₁) = σ²/n	$\mathrm{Var}(\hat{\beta}_1) = \frac{\sigma^2}{n}$
probability of A given B equals probability of B given A times probability of A over probability of B	P(A | B) = P(B | A)·P(A)/P(B)	$P(A \mid B) = P(B \mid A) \cdot \frac{P(A)}{P(B)}$
the sum from k equals one to infinity of one over k squared equals pi squared over six	∑_{k=1}^{∞} 1/k² = π²/6	$\sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{k^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}$
integral from negative infinity to infinity of e to the minus x squared dx equals root pi	∫_{−∞}^{∞} e^{−x²} dx = √π	$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-x^2}\,dx = \sqrt{\pi}$
面积就是 integral from zero to one of f of x dx	面积就是 ∫₀¹ f(x) dx	面积就是 $\int_{0}^{1} f(x)\,dx$

_{Every output above was produced by Flowtype's local converter, assuming speech recognition heard the sentence correctly. Spoken math is optional and off by default; turn it on in Formatting & Appearance.}

Recognised on your Mac

Flowtype does not rely on an “upload, then delete” promise for routine dictation. It keeps that path out of cloud ASR processing in the first place:

• Local transcription: Qwen3-ASR runs on Apple Silicon through a session-token-protected helper bound only to 127.0.0.1. Once the model is installed, routine dictation does not upload the recording.
• Temporary local audio, deleted after transcription: each dictation's temporary WAV is removed when the transcription task ends. With History enabled, only the three most recent recordings are kept locally for manual retry, and clearing History clears them too.
• History under your control: transcript text is stored only in Flowtype History on this Mac, 100 entries by default; you can turn it off, resize it or clear it.
• On-device fallback: Apple Speech runs only when on-device recognition is supported and sets requiresOnDeviceRecognition.
• Explicit network boundary: first-time setup downloads a model of about 1.9 GB. That is an explicit network step; routine transcription stays on the Mac.

Mainstream dictation products including Wispr Flow, Typeless, Qianwen IME, and Doubao IME send audio to cloud services in some or all reviewed transcription paths. Some provide encryption, immediate deletion, Privacy Mode, or zero-retention controls; those are meaningful privacy measures. Flowtype's distinction is avoiding the routine transcription upload, not alleging that another product uploads every keystroke. Local-capable products such as Shandianshuo are not cloud-only comparisons.

See Privacy & Local Data for Flowtype's boundaries and Local And Cloud Dictation Comparison for the dated, versioned evidence notes.

And also

• Smart formatting: numbers, percentages, dates and question parts are tidied, for example "three point five percent" → 3.5%; optionally remove fillers such as "um" and "uh".
• Flowtype Dawn: the default light theme; other themes are one click away.
• Chinese or English interface: pick the interface language on first launch and the menus, main window and Settings follow; reading text comes in three sizes.
• Recoverable failures: History, up to three local retry recordings, model status and diagnostics help you recover text and find the cause.
• Guided start: a five-page illustrated onboarding with a page for practising Fn.

_{Practising Fn in onboarding. History, hotwords and statistics in the interface screenshots are demo data.}

Install

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later on an Apple Silicon Mac;
• Microphone and Accessibility permissions;
• several gigabytes of free storage and unified memory for the local model and runtime.

Download and setup

Download Flowtype.dmg (a Chinese installer window is also available as Flowtype-zh-CN.dmg; the app inside is identical) only from the official v0.1.0-preview.11 Release, open it, and follow the arrow to drag Flowtype.app to Applications. You do not need Swift or a source checkout.

On first launch, a five-page illustrated guide walks you through choosing the interface language, preparing Flowtype and practising holding Fn to talk. Clicking Prepare Flowtype confirms the download: Flowtype requests Microphone and Accessibility permissions, downloads the approximately 1.9 GB default Qwen3-ASR 0.6B model, and shows downloaded bytes, smoothed transfer speed, estimated time remaining and preparation progress. Fresh downloads prefer ModelScope, with resumable transfer and a Hugging Face fallback. Accessibility must still be approved in System Settings; return to Flowtype and setup continues automatically. Once preparation succeeds, Home immediately reuses the verified Ready state without asking you to prepare Flowtype again. Model weights are not stored in this repository or bundled with the source archive.

Open Flowtype for the first time

This is an explicitly labelled unnotarized Preview. macOS will block the first double-click because it cannot verify the developer. That is expected for the current signature and does not mean you should disable macOS security protections. The screenshots use a Chinese macOS interface; the control locations are the same in other system languages.

1. Try to open Flowtype once Double-click Flowtype in Applications and choose Open in the warning. If macOS still blocks the launch, dismiss the dialog and continue to the next step. The Open Anyway control appears only after this first attempt.	2. Allow it in Privacy & Security Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, find the message that Flowtype was blocked, and choose Open Anyway. Authenticate if prompted, then confirm Open.

3. Compare with Apple's official steps. Apple's current instructions likewise require an initial launch attempt followed by System Settings → Privacy & Security → Security → Open/Open Anyway. The control is generally available for about one hour after the attempt. If it is missing, double-click Flowtype again and return to the settings page immediately.

Show Apple's official guide

View Apple's live official instructions. The screenshot is a location aid; Apple may change the page or macOS wording over time.

Use this override only for Flowtype obtained from this project's official Release. Do not disable Gatekeeper or run quarantine-removal or Gatekeeper-disabling commands.

Build from source

These commands are for developers who want to inspect or modify the source, and need Swift 5.9 or later:

swift test
uv run --project Helpers/qwen-asr-helper --frozen pytest
make build

make build creates a locally ad-hoc-signed development bundle at .build/Flowtype.app; it is not an official distribution build.

Documentation

• Installation & Source Builds
• Privacy & Local Data
• Local And Cloud Dictation Comparison
• Architecture
• Troubleshooting
• Changelog
• Contributing
• Security Policy

Never attach real recordings, transcripts, credentials or private diagnostics to an issue.

License

Flowtype software and project-provided assets are licensed under GPL-3.0-only to the extent the project can grant those rights. Exceptions for third-party components, assets, and marks are documented in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, ASSET_PROVENANCE.md, and TRADEMARKS.md.