Best Offline Transcription Software in 2026: 8 Apps Compared

Best for Windows: Dictator, transcription on your PC, no monthly minute cap, free files up to 30 minutes, free speaker labels and Word export.
Best for Mac: MacWhisper, on-device, free version with no minute limit, speaker recognition and Word export in Pro (€64 once).
Best fully free and open source: Buzz, Windows, Mac and Linux, exports TXT, SRT and VTT.
Best for live meetings with a bot: Otter.ai, 300 free minutes a month, cloud only.
Best for occasional files in a browser: TurboScribe, 3 free files a day up to 30 minutes each.
Best for editing audio by its text: Descript, 60 free minutes a month.

What each app gives you for free

The free plan matters more than the feature list. Cloud services pay for every minute their servers process, so their free plan works like a trial. Apps that run on your computer have nothing to meter.

App	Free	Where audio is processed	Speaker labels	Export	Paid from
Dictator	no monthly minute cap, unlimited files up to 30 min each, no sign-up	your computer: Windows, Mac, Android	free, on your computer	Word, PDF, SRT, VTT, TXT on Windows; TXT, Markdown on Mac	$5.99/month, files up to 90 min
MacWhisper	free version, no minute limit	your Mac	Pro only	TXT, SRT, VTT; Word and PDF in Pro	€64 once
Buzz	completely free, open source	your computer: Windows, Apple silicon Mac, Linux	free	TXT, SRT, VTT	no paid plan
Otter.ai	300 min/month, 30 min per conversation, 3 file uploads per account	cloud	free	TXT	$16.99/month
TurboScribe	3 files a day, up to 30 min each	cloud	yes	PDF, DOCX, SRT, VTT, CSV, TXT	$20/month, $10 billed yearly
Descript	60 min/month	cloud, no offline editing	free	DOCX, TXT, SRT, VTT	$24/month, $16 billed yearly
Notta	120 min/month, 3 min per recording	cloud	free	Pro only	$13.49/month
Rev	45 AI min/month, English only	cloud	yes, not guaranteed	DOCX, PDF, TXT, SRT, VTT	$29.99/month or $0.25/min

In short: only Dictator and Buzz give you free local speaker labels with no minute cap, and only Dictator adds free Word and PDF export on Windows.

Cloud services meter minutes on their servers; a desktop app transcribes with no meter and no upload

Download Dictator for free, or try a short file online first (the online page uploads it to our server and lets you save the text as Word or SRT).

Dictator: offline transcription with no minute cap

Dictator is our app. It runs the Whisper large-v3-turbo model on your computer, so a recording is transcribed without internet and the file stays on your disk. There is no monthly minute limit on any plan, including the free one.

Free: no monthly minute cap, unlimited files up to 30 minutes each, no account needed.
Paid: $5.99 a month for files up to 90 minutes, $12.99 for up to 4 hours, $29.99 with no length limit.
Speakers and timestamps: one button splits the text by speaker (Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on) on your computer, free on every plan. Click any line and playback jumps to that moment.
Export: the Windows app saves to Word, PDF, SRT, VTT, TXT, Markdown and CSV, free on every plan. The Mac app saves TXT and Markdown.
Languages: recognizes 100 languages offline. A transcript can be translated offline into 45 languages and online into 198.
Accuracy: on six recordings of everyday English speech, it got 99.3% of words right on average, and three of the six came out word for word, including both phone-quality ones.
Ask about the recording: the AI chat drafts meeting minutes, lists action items and finds what a given person said, with links to the moments. It needs internet: the transcript text is sent to our server. It is included in every plan up to a monthly limit.
Calls without a bot: on Windows, Dictator starts recording by itself when a call begins in Zoom, Teams, Skype or Webex, captures the other side together with your microphone and leaves a transcript split into you and the others. Nobody joins your call, and one button turns it into meeting minutes.
Batches: drop up to 50 files at once and they are transcribed one after another.
Also: voice typing into any window, live captions with translation, text to speech. The Android app is available at dictator.my.
Best for: confidential interviews and regular transcription without counting minutes.

A transcript in Dictator: lines split by speaker, a timestamp on each and a bar showing who spoke how long

Download Dictator for Windows or Mac

Asking the recording: the AI drafts meeting minutes, and every decision and task links to its moment in the audio

MacWhisper: the polished choice on a Mac

MacWhisper transcribes on your Mac and says so plainly: "All transcription is done on your device, no data leaves your machine." It supports 100 languages. The free version has no minute limit. Automatic speaker recognition, Word and PDF export, translation and AI summaries come with Pro, a one-time €64. Speaker recognition needs an M-series Mac.

Best for: Mac users who want a native, mature app and are happy to pay once for Pro.

Buzz: free and open source

Buzz is a free, MIT-licensed app for Windows, Linux and Macs with Apple silicon. It transcribes offline once you download a model, labels speakers and exports TXT, SRT and VTT. It has no Word or PDF export, the Windows installer is unsigned (Windows shows a warning during install), and local translation goes only into English.

Best for: people who like choosing their own models and want a free app with open code.

Otter.ai: live meetings in the cloud

Otter joins your calls and writes notes. Its free plan gives 300 minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation. For files the limit is tight: 3 uploads per account, lifetime. Without internet Otter only records, and transcription waits until you are back online. Pro costs $16.99 a month or $8.33 billed yearly, for 1,200 minutes and 10 file uploads a month.

Best for: teams that live in Zoom and Google Meet and want a bot in the meeting.

TurboScribe: three files a day in a browser

TurboScribe transcribes 3 files a day for free, each up to 30 minutes, once you sign in with email or Google. Exports include PDF, DOCX, SRT, VTT, CSV and TXT. Unlimited costs $20 a month or $10 billed yearly and accepts files up to 10 hours.

Best for: an occasional file when you would rather not install anything.

Descript, Notta and Rev: cloud tools with a different focus

Descript lets you edit audio and video by editing the transcript and gives 60 free minutes a month; it does not support offline editing, and plans start at $24 a month. Notta gives 120 free minutes a month but stops each recording at 3 minutes and keeps export for Pro ($13.49 a month). Rev offers 45 free AI minutes a month in English only, or $0.25 a minute without a subscription, plus human transcription when you need every word certified.

When Otter or MacWhisper is the better choice

If your work is live meetings, Otter's bot and shared notes fit better than any desktop app. If you only use a Mac and want the most mature native app, MacWhisper Pro is worth its one-time price. If a person must sign off on every word, pay Rev for human transcription. For recordings you cannot upload, or for many hours a month on Windows, a local app like Dictator costs less than cloud plans and keeps the file with you.

How to transcribe an interview without uploading it

Download Dictator for Windows or Mac and open Transcription. No account is needed.
Drop in the recording (MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, MP4 or MOV) and press Transcribe. The text appears on your computer.
Press Split speakers, check the text against playback and save it. On Windows you can save straight to Word, PDF or SRT.

Exporting a transcript: Word, PDF, SRT and WebVTT subtitles, TXT, Markdown, a spreadsheet and JSON, with speaker names and timestamps

Questions people ask

Does Otter.ai work offline?

No. Otter can record without a connection, but transcription happens on its servers after you reconnect. For transcription that never leaves your computer, use an on-device app such as Dictator, MacWhisper or Buzz.

Is there free offline transcription software for Windows?

Yes. Dictator transcribes on your PC with no monthly minute cap and handles files up to 30 minutes on the free plan, with free speaker labels and Word export. Buzz is fully free and open source but saves only TXT, SRT and VTT.

Which offline app labels speakers for free?

Dictator and Buzz both separate speakers on your computer at no cost. MacWhisper does it in Pro, on M-series Macs.

How accurate is offline transcription?

Very close to cloud services. On six recordings of everyday English speech, Dictator got 99.3% of words right on average. Wirecutter measured 98.7% accuracy for OpenAI's Whisper Large model running locally.

Can I save an offline transcript as a Word document?

Yes. The Dictator Windows app saves to Word, PDF, SRT and VTT on every plan, MacWhisper saves Word and PDF in Pro, and Buzz stops at TXT, SRT and VTT.

How do I keep a confidential recording off the cloud?

Use an app that processes audio on your device. Dictator, MacWhisper and Buzz transcribe locally, while Otter, TurboScribe, Descript, Notta and Rev upload the file to their servers.

Ready to try it on your own recording? Download Dictator for free, or test a short file online.

Free limits and prices were checked on each vendor's own pricing and help pages on October 4, 2026: otter.ai/pricing, turboscribe.ai/pricing, rev.com/pricing, descript.com/pricing, notta.ai/en/pricing, macwhisper.com, github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz. Dictator's terms come from its plan table. Our accuracy test used two everyday English texts of 269 words read by two voices, each recorded clean, at phone quality and with background noise, on October 4, 2026. Wirecutter's figure is from its review of transcription services.