Install Voxt

Install Voxt#

Voxt is voice input for macOS built on SGLang-Omni: press a shortcut in any app, speak, and the text appears where your cursor is. Speech is recognised on your Mac by SGLang-Omni’s native MLX runtime.

Download: the newest Voxt-X.Y.Z-arm64.dmg from the Voxt releases.

Needs: a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later. The app is about 280 MB; the recommended speech model is a 2.5 GB download. Voxt 2 does not run on an Intel Mac; there, keep using Voxt 1.x.

What is new in Voxt 2#

Voxt 2 is a new app that replaces the Swift Voxt 1.x. The biggest changes:

  • Speech recognition runs on SGLang-Omni: the local speech models (Qwen3-ASR 1.7B and 0.6B, and the 1.x models such as Whisper, Parakeet and SenseVoice) run on SGLang-Omni’s native MLX servers, with the text shown live as you speak. Faster transcription adds a small draft model that speeds up Qwen3-ASR by speculative decoding.

  • You choose the language model: clean-up, Translate and Rewrite use a service you set up (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM, Doubao and others), or one on your Mac with Ollama, LM Studio or oMLX. Voxt 2 no longer runs language models itself.

  • Rewrite keeps a conversation in the answer card: say a follow-up (“shorter”, “now in English”), then copy or insert the answer.

  • The dictionary learns: Voxt suggests names and terms from your history and from the corrections you make after it types.

  • One-click import from Voxt 1.x: the dictionary, history, downloaded speech models, and your language model and speech service setups come over.

  • Open source in this repository, under the Apache License 2.0.

Voxt 2 does not update itself: install each new version from its disk image. The full list of changes is in the changelog.

New users#

  1. Download the disk image and open it.

  2. Drag Voxt to Applications, then open Voxt from Applications.

  3. Follow the setup guide:

    • Grant the microphone and Accessibility permissions.

    • Download the recommended speech model, Qwen3-ASR 1.7B (8bit) (2.5 GB).

    • For clean-up, Translate and Rewrite, set up a language model on the Language models page.

  4. Tap the right Option key in any app, speak, and tap it again.

Upgrading from Voxt 1.x#

  1. Quit Voxt 1.x from its menu bar icon. If it does not quit, use Force Quit (⌥⌘⎋).

  2. Open the Voxt 2 disk image and drag Voxt to Applications. When Finder asks:

    • Replace replaces the app. Voxt 1.x’s data stays, so reinstalling Voxt 1.x brings it back.

    • Keep Both keeps Voxt 1.x next to Voxt 2. Their default shortcuts do not overlap.

  3. Open Voxt. The setup guide starts with Import from the previous Voxt. Click it. If an open panel appears, click Import without changing the folder.

  4. The import brings over the dictionary, the history, your language model and speech service setups, and the speech models Voxt 1.x downloaded (no new download). It does not bring over API keys, shortcuts, other settings, or Voxt 1.x’s local language models.

  5. Grant the microphone and Accessibility again. macOS treats Voxt 2 as a different app, so the permissions of Voxt 1.x do not carry over.

  6. Set up a language model on the Language models page.

Voxt 1.x’s Check for Updates does not install Voxt 2. If you installed Voxt 1.x with Homebrew, install Voxt 2 from the disk image as well.

Another Mac: in Voxt 1.x, export the dictionary (Dictionary → More → Export); in Voxt 2, import the file (Dictionary → ••• → Import…). Only the dictionary moves this way.

Going back: reinstall Voxt 1.16.3. Its data is where Voxt 1.x left it.

More detail, with screenshots: From Voxt 1.x to Voxt 2.