FROM ZERO TO YAPPING
SET UP IN FIVE MINUTES
Six steps, two permission prompts, zero accounts. This page matches app behavior exactly; when the app changes, this page changes with it.
01
INSTALL IT
Grab the DMG from the latest release, drag YappYapp into Applications, open it. If macOS complains about an unidentified developer, that is Gatekeeper doing its job on a not-yet-notarized build: right-click the app, choose Open, and confirm. The DMG ships a FIRST-OPEN file with the exact steps for your macOS version.
02
GRANT TWO PERMISSIONS
The guided setup asks for Microphone (to hear you) and Accessibility (to type the result where your cursor is). Both prompts are macOS-native. YappYapp verifies every insertion afterward, and if a paste cannot be confirmed it says so in plain words instead of silently failing.
03
PICK A MODEL
The Models tab offers Whisper (tiny through large) and Parakeet v3. Bigger Whisper models are more accurate and use more memory; Parakeet is the fast multilingual pick on Apple Silicon. Downloads are checksum-verified and happen exactly once.
04
PRESS ⌥ SPACE AND TALK
⌥ + space starts recording from any app. Talk. Press it again and the transcript lands at your cursor. esc cancels a recording you regret. That is the entire interface.
05
TEACH IT YOUR WORDS
The Words tab is your glossary: add product names, clients, and acronyms once ("yappyapp" becomes "YappYapp"), and every future transcript gets them right, in any language you dictate.
06
RAISE YOUR PET
Every word feeds your pet XP. Daily quests and streaks keep the habit alive, and hats are earned at levels 3, 6, and 10. Fourteen pets exist. The dragon costs ten thousand words. Save your weekly recap card from the Pet tab when you want to show off.
POWER SWITCHES
Everything below is off-by-default or clearly labeled, with the trade-off stated on the toggle itself. The app does not hide costs in settings copy.
SUPER FAST MODE
Warm mic + ring buffer so your first word is never clipped. Trade-off: the macOS orange dot stays on. Off by default; the toggle says exactly this.
LLM CLEANUP
A small local Qwen model tidies punctuation and removes filler words in about a second. Falls back to your exact words if anything is off.
KEEP THE MODEL WARM
Holds Whisper in memory for near-instant transcription. Costs RAM while idle, saves seconds per dictation.
QUIET VOICE BOOST
Dictating in an open office at whisper volume works. The normalizer brings you up to what the model expects.
STUCK? THE FROG BELIEVES IN YOU.
THE APP SHIPS DIAGNOSTIC COMMANDS FOR EVERYTHING (MIC, MODELS, PASTE, PERMISSIONS). RUN THE DOCTOR SCRIPT OR OPEN AN ISSUE ON GITHUB WITH ITS OUTPUT.
GET HELP ON GITHUB