# Kayit: On-device Voice to Text — Private Transcription for Confidential Interviews. No Cloud.

**On the record. Off the cloud.**

Kayit **transcribes your interviews locally**, on your Mac, your iPhone or
your iPad, and **transcribing is free**: three on-device engines, a hundred
languages and an editor where correcting a word keeps its timing. Kayit Pro
adds what you build on top of the words, from speaker separation to quotes
with their audio. Nothing **is processed in the cloud** on either tier.

**Available now on the App Store:** https://apps.apple.com/app/id6790792845

- Mac (M1 or later), iPhone and iPad

## Features

### A hundred languages across three engines, chosen per interview (free)

Pick the trade-off each recording deserves: Apple, Parakeet or Whisper. Choose
the language first and Kayit grays out any engine that can't handle it, with
the reason and a time estimate, before you commit. All three run on-device;
none of them is a network call after the initial download of the engine.

### Edit the transcript without breaking the record (free)

Edit paragraphs with real Mac text editing, and the timestamps survive. Fix a
typo and every word keeps its exact timing, so playback stays aligned to the
words you corrected. Autocorrect, smart quotes and Writing Tools are switched
off in the editor, so nothing can rewrite a source's words for you.

### Getting the audio in takes one gesture (free)

Share straight from Voice Memos, which has no export of its own. Right-click ▸
Open With in Finder, or drop a file on the window. On iPhone and iPad it is
the share sheet, from Voice Memos or Files. Drop in a video and Kayit takes
the audio track, leaving your file untouched.

### Knows who's speaking (Kayit Pro)

Automatic speaker separation splits the transcript every time the speaker
changes and labels who is talking. Rename a speaker once and it applies across
the whole interview. Save a sample of your own voice from a transcript you
have already labeled, and Kayit names you automatically in every interview
after that.

### Finds the passages that matter (Kayit Pro)

An on-device model flags admissions, allegations, contradictions, on-record
claims, and financial and legal exposure, linking every one back to the moment
in the audio. Set each category's own bar, and see roughly how many passages
that will flag before you re-run. Click a passage to see it in context in the
transcript. The passage is the transcript's own words rather than a
paraphrase, with a line under it from the model saying why it was flagged.

### Summary, outline and pull-quotes, with a switch to turn them off (Kayit Pro)

A plain-language summary, a timestamped outline whose entries seek the audio,
and suggested quotes anchored to the transcript's real words rather than a
paraphrase. It runs on your Mac, and a switch turns it off, enforceable across
a whole organization if your policy requires it.

### File a story's interviews into a project (Kayit Pro)

A project is a folder in your library, so what you see in the sidebar is what
the Finder and your backup see, and nothing moves until you ask. One roster of
speaker names runs across the project, so a source you have interviewed six
times is spelled the same way six times; every quote you saved in it gathers
into a single list; and the whole set exports together, audio included. The
running list of what you still need lives in the project as a plain Markdown
file. Making a project is the part that needs Pro: if a subscription lapses,
the projects you have stay open and you can keep filing into them, archiving
them and finding what is inside them.

### Send the whole interview to a colleague (Kayit Pro)

Export the transcript and the audio as one bundle. Someone without Kayit
double-clicks the transcript and reads it; someone with it gets the speakers,
word timings and your saved quotes without re-transcribing. Sending the words
alone costs nothing: plain text is in the free tier, and Pro adds Markdown,
CSV, SubRip subtitles, timestamps and anything that carries the audio.

### The same interviews on your Mac, iPhone and iPad

One purchase covers all three. The iPhone and iPad app transcribes, plays
back, edits, names speakers, saves quotes and exports, with the same free line
drawn through it, and the iPad lays that out in three panes with the insights
beside the transcript. The AI insights are the one thing the iPhone does not
have, for the plain reason that the model needs more memory than a phone has.
A saved sample of your voice works on each device but does not yet travel
between them. None of the three records; all of them transcribe recordings you
already have.

## Who it's for

Built for confidential work. Kayit keeps the recording on your device.

A confidential source's recording is the single file with the most to lose if
it leaks. A cloud vendor's breach or a subpoena is a risk because it's not in
your hands. The audio never leaves your Mac, iPhone or iPad to be transcribed,
so there is no vendor or server holding it and no third party who can be
compelled to hand it over. The transcript stays put too: the model that flags
passages and writes the optional summary is downloaded to your own device and
reads it there, never at a cloud AI service. There is no account either, so
nothing on our side carries your name or ties you to a recording.

Built first for journalists, but useful to anyone bound to a confidence. If
your IT or security team has blocked cloud transcription outright, Kayit is
the tool they can actually approve.

**Lawyers** — Speaker labels and word-level timings survive an edit, so a
transcript you have corrected still lines up with the recording it was taken
from.

**Researchers** — There is no processor to name on an ethics application and
no transfer to justify, because the recording is never sent anywhere to be
transcribed.

**Clinicians** — The session is transcribed on the Mac that recorded it, so a
patient's words never become a third party's copy to secure, audit or
disclose.

**Investigators** — A saved quote keeps its speaker, timestamp and exact audio
span, so a statement a subject later disputes can be played back the way it
was said.

- **Works offline.** After a first use model download, disconnect the Wi-Fi
  and it still transcribes. Nothing in the free tier ever waits on a
  subscription check, and Pro keeps working for two weeks when the App Store
  cannot be reached.
- **The generative half switches off.** One setting removes the on-device
  summary and outline. A second removes the note the model writes on why a
  passage was flagged. Both are standard macOS preferences, so an organization
  can enforce either with a managed profile.
- **You own the files.** Every transcript is written to an open
  `.transcript.json` file beside your audio that other tools can read, and
  exporting it as plain text costs nothing, so there is no lock-in and no tier
  that holds your words hostage.
- **Cloud-folder warnings.** Kayit warns you before saving or exporting
  interviews into iCloud, Dropbox or other syncing folders.

## Pricing

Free to transcribe, with a subscription for the editorial tools.

Downloading Kayit costs nothing, and neither does transcribing with it. The
free tier is a complete local transcriber with no time limit on it. Pro adds
the layer built on top of the words, and starts with a 14-day free trial.
Cloud tools meter your minutes and cap your uploads; Kayit doesn't, because
there is nothing to upload.

### Kayit

**Free** — no account, no card

Everything needed to turn a recording into accurate text you can read, correct
and keep.

- Transcription on-device, all three engines
- A hundred languages, chosen per interview
- Playback with the transcript following word by word
- Search, and your whole library of interviews
- Edit mode, where a correction keeps its timing
- Export the whole transcript as plain text

### Kayit Pro

**$6.99** — USD / month

Or $49.99 a year, which works out at $4.17 a month. Starts with a 14-day free
trial; cancel in the App Store.

- Speaker separation, and re-running it when it reads wrong
- A sample of your own voice, so your turns are named for you
- Quotes with their speaker, timestamp and exact audio span
- Trimmed audio clips of any quote
- On-device insights: summary, outline, flagged passages, entities
- Markdown, CSV and subtitle export, with timestamps, and any export carrying the audio

Free to download and transcribe · macOS 26+ (Tahoe) · iOS and iPadOS 26+

Pro is one subscription with everything in it: no add-ons, no per-minute
charges and no upload limits. Bought through the App Store, once, for the Mac,
iPhone and iPad apps together. No Kayit account is required for either tier,
and no subscription check can hold up a transcription.

## Requirements

- **Platform:** macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later on a Mac with Apple chip (M1 or later), iOS 26 or later on iPhone, and iPadOS 26 or later on iPad.
- **Network:** Needed only for the first use model download; fully offline after that.
- **Publisher:** Detroit Game Studio, LLC

## More

- [Support & FAQ](https://kayit.press/support.md)
- [Privacy Policy](https://kayit.press/privacy.md)
- [Terms & Conditions](https://kayit.press/terms.md)