How can we help?

Email abhishek@ThinkingSoundLab.com. A person who works on LocalBolo reads every message.

If something isn't working, tell us your Mac model, your macOS version, and the version of LocalBolo (select it in Applications and choose File › Get Info). Please don't attach recordings or transcripts unless you want us to see them.

Download the latest LocalBolo, drag it to your Applications folder and open it. The setup guide asks for your license key, which is in the email from Dodo Payments you got after buying. You only enter it once per Mac.

One license works on up to 2 Macs at a time. Moving to a new Mac? Open Settings › License on the old one and choose Deactivate This Mac, then enter the same key on the new one. If the old Mac is lost or broken, email abhishek@ThinkingSoundLab.com and we'll free up its activation.

Go to localbolo.app/license and enter the email you bought LocalBolo with. You'll get a sign-in link to a page that shows your key. Still stuck? Email abhishek@ThinkingSoundLab.com.

LocalBolo checks for updates once a day and asks before installing one. To check now, click the menu bar icon and choose Check for Updates. You can turn automatic checks off in Settings › General.

• A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer). The speech models run on the Neural Engine, which Intel Macs don't have.
• macOS 15 Sequoia or later.
• Disk space for the model you choose: 470 MB for Parakeet v2, the default, plus 880 MB if you turn on transcript cleanup.
• 8 GB of memory is enough, including with cleanup turned on.
• An internet connection to activate your license and download a model. After that, dictation works offline.

LocalBolo needs Accessibility access to paste. Click the menu bar icon, choose Setup Guide, and click Open Settings next to Accessibility, then turn LocalBolo on.

If it already looks on, for example after an update, click Open Settings in the Setup Guide anyway: it clears the old entry so you can turn it on again. Until then, each transcript is copied to the clipboard so you can paste it yourself.

Open System Settings › Keyboard and set “Press 🌐 key to” to “Do Nothing”. The Setup Guide in LocalBolo links straight there.

• Make sure your license key is activated, and that your Mac has been online in the last month so LocalBolo could check it. Click the menu bar icon: it says if either needs attention.
• Hold fn for at least a quarter of a second. Quick taps are ignored on purpose.
• Check that LocalBolo has Microphone access in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone.
• Make sure a speech model has finished downloading. Click the menu bar icon to see its progress.

The first time a model loads, macOS optimizes it for your Mac's Neural Engine, which can take up to a minute. It happens once per model. After that, dictation starts right away.

The FAQ covers pricing, languages and privacy. The privacy policy explains exactly what the app does with your data, and the changelog lists what's new in each version.