MarkdownMax

A macOS menu bar app for local, on-device audio transcription using Whisper + MLX. No cloud uploads. No subscriptions. Everything stays on your Mac.

Features

• 100% local — recordings and transcripts never leave your device
• Whisper-powered — 2–3% WER with the Medium model on Apple Silicon
• Menu bar app — one-click recording from anywhere, global keyboard shortcuts
• Full-text search — search across all transcripts instantly
• Export — Markdown, plain text, or PDF

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later
• Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3)
• Xcode 15+ (to build from source)
• Internet connection on first launch (to download a Whisper model)

Build & Run

open MarkdownMax.xcodeproj

Select the MarkdownMax scheme and press ⌘R.

Or from the terminal:

xcodebuild \
  -project MarkdownMax.xcodeproj \
  -scheme MarkdownMax \
  -destination 'platform=macOS' \
  -clonedSourcePackagesDirPath .build/packages \
  build

First Launch

1. Look for the waveform icon (⌁) in your menu bar.
2. Download a Whisper model from the onboarding sheet.

Model	Size	Accuracy	Speed (10 min audio)
Tiny	39 MB	~5% WER	~8 seconds
Small	244 MB	~3% WER	~45 seconds
Medium	1.5 GB	~2% WER	2–3 minutes ★
Large	3 GB	~1% WER	5–7 minutes

Medium recommended for most users.

Usage

Action	Shortcut
Start / stop recording	⌘R
Open last transcript	⌘⇧T

Transcription starts automatically after recording stops. Transcripts are searchable, selectable, and exportable as Markdown, plain text, or PDF.

Data

All data is stored locally at ~/Library/Application Support/MarkdownMax/. To uninstall, delete the app and that directory.

License

MIT