Private dictation for iPhone
Your voice, typed. On your phone, and nowhere else.
Sotto Voce is a dictation keyboard for iPhone. Talk in any app and your words appear as you speak, turned into text by the phone in your hand. Nothing is uploaded, there's no account, and it works offline.
- Free for 1,000 words a week
- Works offline
- No account
- iOS 26
Works wherever you type
Messages
WhatsApp
Mail
Gmail
Notes
Instagram
Telegram
X
ChatGPT
Slack
Teams
Outlook
LinkedIn
Discord
Notion
Google Docs
Reminders
…and any app where a keyboard comes up.
How it works
Set it up once.
Then just talk.
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Add the keyboard
Allow the microphone, then turn on the Sotto Voce keyboard and Allow Full Access in Settings. That's how the app hands your words to the keyboard, on the phone.
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Read one sentence
Sotto Voce learns your voice from one sentence read out loud, so it can leave out other people talking nearby. It keeps learning as you dictate, on the phone.
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Tap Start and talk
In any app, switch to Sotto Voce and tap Start. Your words appear as you speak; tap the listening screen to finish. The first time in a session, the app opens for a moment to claim the microphone, because iOS doesn't let keyboards use it.
Privacy
Nothing leaves the phone.
Most dictation apps send your voice to a server to be transcribed. That's a recording of you, on someone else's computer, tied to an account. Sotto Voce turns speech into text on your iPhone, so there's nothing to leak, hand over or sell.
on your iPhone
any app
No server in the loop
- Speech engine
- Apple's speech recogniser, running on your iPhone.
- Your voice
- A voice profile learned on the phone, so it can leave out other people. It is numbers, not a recording, and it stays on your iPhone.
- Network
- One-way downloads of model files, the first time they're needed. None of your audio or words go with them.
- Kept on the phone
- Your settings, your weekly word count, and your recent dictations if you keep them. No audio is saved.
- Account
- None. No sign-up, no email, no analytics, no tracking.
- Offline
- Keeps working in airplane mode, underground, or anywhere without signal.
On the keyboard
Hears you.
Not the room.
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Only your voice
Once it has learned your voice, Sotto Voce leaves out other people talking nearby, so the people around you don't end up in your message. If it starts missing your words, Relearn my voice in Settings starts again.
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A full keyboard, too
When you'd rather type, there's a full QWERTY with autocorrect, and emoji you can search by name. Clear wipes the line if you want to say it again.
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The mic, in the Dynamic Island
While Sotto Voce is holding the microphone, the Dynamic Island shows it. Press and hold the island and tap the power button to turn the mic off.
Compare
Coming from Wispr Flow?
Both put a dictation keyboard on your iPhone. The difference is where your voice goes to become text.
See the full comparisonPricing
Free to start. Cheap to keep.
Dictate up to 1,000 words a week for free, with no account and no card. If you dictate more than that, Pro removes the limit.
Free
£0
- Up to 1,000 words a week through the keyboard
- The full keyboard, with autocorrect and emoji search
- Learns your voice and leaves out other people
- Everything on the device, as always
Sotto Voce Pro
No weekly limit. Everything else is the same.
UK prices. In the US: $2.99 a month, $19.99 a year or $79.99 for life. The App Store shows the price in your currency before you buy, and subscriptions are managed in your Apple Account.
Questions
Questions people ask.
Is there a dictation app for iPhone that works offline?
Yes. Sotto Voce turns speech into text on the iPhone itself, so it works with no signal or in airplane mode once its speech models have downloaded. It types into any app through its own keyboard.
Does Sotto Voce upload my voice?
No. Your voice is transcribed on your iPhone and is never uploaded, never stored on a server and never used to train anything. There is no account, no analytics and no tracking. The only downloads are one-way: the model files it needs to run on the phone.
What is a private alternative to Wispr Flow on iPhone?
Sotto Voce is a dictation keyboard for iPhone that turns speech into text on the phone, where Wispr Flow transcribes on its servers. It works offline, needs no account, and Pro costs £2.99 a month or £19.99 a year. See the full comparison.
How is it different from the iPhone's built-in dictation?
iOS has dictation built in, and on recent iPhones much of it runs on the device too. Sotto Voce adds a keyboard that visibly reacts while it listens; a voice profile, learned on the phone, so it leaves out other people talking nearby; a Clear button that wipes the line so you can say it again; a full keyboard with autocorrect and emoji search for when you would rather type; and the microphone shown in the Dynamic Island, with a button to turn it off.
How much does Sotto Voce cost?
It's free to download and free for up to 1,000 words a week, with no account or card. Sotto Voce Pro removes the weekly limit: £2.99 a month, £19.99 a year with the first 7 days free, or £74.99 once for life. In the US it's $2.99, $19.99 or $79.99.
Does it work on Android, Mac or Windows?
No. Sotto Voce is an iPhone app and needs iOS 26.
Which languages does it support?
Sotto Voce is designed and tested for English.
Why does the keyboard ask for Full Access?
An iPhone keyboard needs Full Access to receive the text that the Sotto Voce app transcribes. It isn't used to send anything anywhere; there is nowhere for it to go. More on Full Access.
Said softly, meant for one listener.
Sotto voce is Italian for “under the voice”: spoken quietly, for one person to hear.
Setting it up? See Support.