Comparison
Zimplfy or the built-in macOS Dictation?
Your Mac can already type what you say and read what you select. Here is what that gives you, and what Zimplfy adds.
macOS ships with two relevant features. Dictation turns speech into text in any text field: press the shortcut, talk, and the words appear. Spoken Content reads selected text with a system voice when you press a key. Both are free, work offline on recent Macs, and need no install. Swedish is supported for both, though the Swedish system voices vary in quality and sound more mechanical than the English ones.
Dictation types what it hears. You say the punctuation yourself, and the result keeps your pauses, repeats and half sentences. That is fine for a quick note. For an email you want to send as is, it usually needs a second pass.
Zimplfy's Dictate works the other way round. Hold a key, talk the way you talk, let go. The transcript is turned into clean written text in the language you spoke, with punctuation, without the repeats, ready to paste. Read aloud uses a natural voice in Swedish or English and marks each word as it is spoken. And the same popup can Explain, Summarize and Rewrite the text you select.
| Zimplfy | macOS Dictation | |
|---|---|---|
| Speech to text in any app | Yes, hold a key | Yes, built in |
| Clean written text, punctuation added | Yes | No, you say the punctuation |
| Removes repeats and false starts | Yes | No |
| Read selected text aloud | Yes, natural voice | Yes, system voices |
| Word marked as it is spoken | Yes | Partly, sentence or word highlighting |
| Swedish voice quality | Natural | Varies |
| Works offline | No | Yes, on recent Macs |
| Explain, Summarize, Rewrite | Yes | No |
| Price | Free plan, Pro coming | Free, included |
| Windows | Yes | No, Mac only |
Pick the built-in tools when
- You want to work offline, or do not want text sent to a service.
- A raw transcript is enough: notes, search boxes, quick messages.
- You are happy with the system voice and just need something read now and then.
- You prefer not to install anything.
Pick Zimplfy when
- You want to dictate an email and send it without rewriting it first.
- You switch between Swedish and English and want both to come out clean.
- You want a natural voice and the spoken word marked while you follow along.
- Reading is not enough: the text needs explaining or summing up too.
You say
“eh hi Anna so about the invoice the one from last week um I think the amount is wrong it should be twelve hundred not twenty one hundred can you can you send a new one thanks”
Heard: eh hi Anna so about the invoice the one from last week um I think the amount is wrong it should be twelve hundred not twenty one hundred can you can you send a new one thanks
Hi Anna,
About last week's invoice: I think the amount is wrong. It should be 1 200, not 2 100. Could you send a new one?
Thanks
Questions
Does Zimplfy change what I said?
It keeps your meaning and your words where they work. It adds punctuation, removes repeats and fillers, and tidies half sentences. You see the result before you paste it.
Where does my recording go?
To our server, which passes it to ElevenLabs for transcription and to Claude for the clean-up. Neither the recording nor the text is stored by us.
Can I use my own voice shortcut?
Yes. The Dictate shortcut is ⌃⌥D by default and can be changed in Settings. It must differ from the main shortcut, ⌃⌥R.