Kalam - Speech-to-Text for macOS, Hindi + English

How It Works

Hold Cmd+Shift+Space

→

Speak Hindi, English, or both

→

Release

→

Text appears at cursor

Prefer toggling? Tap the hotkey to start, tap again to stop. A floating indicator shows elapsed time while you record.

Features

🇮🇳

22 Indian Languages + English

Optional Sarvam AI engine (Saaras v3) covers Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, and 17 more — including code-mixed Hinglish. Local Whisper Large Turbo covers offline use.

🔒

Private by Default

The default local engine keeps your voice on your Mac. The cloud engine is opt-in and clearly labeled.

⌨️

Tap or Hold

Tap Cmd+Shift+Space to toggle, or hold it like a walkie-talkie. Works from any app.

🎯

Auto-Insert

Text appears at your cursor and copies to clipboard. Auto-stops after silence so nothing runs away.

📖

Personal Dictionary

Teach it names, acronyms, and course codes once — every transcript comes out right.

💾

History & Files

Searchable transcription history, plus drag & drop audio file transcription.

Quick Install

Run this in Terminal:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/harshvardhaniimi/kalam/main/install.sh | bash

Then right-click the app in Applications → "Open" (first time only)

Manual Install

Download Kalam.zip and extract it
Move Kalam.app to Applications
Open Terminal and run: xattr -cr /Applications/Kalam.app
Right-click the app → "Open"

Why the Terminal step? macOS quarantines downloaded apps. This removes the quarantine flag—safe for open-source apps you trust.

Permissions Needed

Microphone — For recording audio
Prompted on first recording
Accessibility (optional) — For auto-inserting text at cursor
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility

Good news! The global hotkey (Cmd+Shift+Space) works without any special permissions, and you only grant Microphone/Accessibility once — grants persist across app updates.

Dictating in Hindi? Get a free API key at dashboard.sarvam.ai, paste it in Settings → Transcription Engine, and pick Sarvam AI. Without a key, Kalam uses on-device Whisper — download the Large Turbo model for usable Hindi.

Uninstall

To completely remove Kalam:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/harshvardhaniimi/kalam/main/uninstall.sh | bash

Feedback Welcome!

This app was entirely vibe coded with Claude Code.

Found a bug? Have a feature idea? Open an issue or submit a PR!