Kol (קול, Hebrew for "voice") is a fork of kitlangton/Hex — a macOS menu bar app for on-device voice-to-text using Parakeet TDT on Apple Silicon, with optional LLM post-processing.
More screenshots
- On-device transcription via Parakeet TDT — fast, accurate, multilingual, runs entirely on Apple Silicon
- AI post-processing — optional LLM cleanup via Groq, Cerebras, or any OpenAI-compatible API (~80ms latency):
- Fixes punctuation, removes filler words, corrects ASR errors
- Formats lists as bullet points in docs, keeps casual tone in messaging
- Adapts to the target app (Terminal, Slack, Notes, etc.)
- Composable prompt architecture: core rules + language-specific + app-context + your custom rules
- Context-aware — captures screen text, IDE file names, and vocabulary near the cursor to improve transcription accuracy
- Press-and-hold or double-tap hotkey recording modes
Requires macOS 15+, Xcode 16+, Apple Silicon.
git clone https://github.com/alandotcom/Kol.git
cd Kol
xcodebuild build \
-scheme Kol \
-configuration Release \
-skipMacroValidation \
CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY=- \
CODE_SIGN_STYLE=Manual
# Find and install the built app
cp -R ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Kol-*/Build/Products/Release/Kol.app /Applications/
open /Applications/Kol.appOr open Kol.xcodeproj in Xcode, set your signing team under Signing & Capabilities, and hit Cmd+R.
On first launch, grant microphone and accessibility permissions. The Parakeet model downloads automatically (~650 MB).
Once you open Kol, you'll need to grant it microphone and accessibility permissions—so it can record your voice and paste the transcribed text into any application, respectively.
Once you've configured a global hotkey, there are two recording modes:
- Press-and-hold the hotkey to begin recording, say whatever you want, and then release the hotkey to start the transcription process.
- Double-tap the hotkey to lock recording, say whatever you want, and then tap the hotkey once more to start the transcription process.
This project is licensed under the MIT License — originally created by Kit Langton. See LICENSE for details.