What Is 5 min read Updated February 2, 2026

On-Device Speech Recognition: Privacy & Performance Explained

On-device speech recognition processes your voice directly on your Mac without sending data to the cloud. This offers privacy benefits and works offline, but has some tradeoffs to understand.

Table of Contents

  1. How On-Device Processing Works
  2. Privacy Benefits
  3. Limitations
  4. Cloud vs On-Device
  5. Which Languages Support It

How On-Device Processing Works

This section covers important information about how on-device processing works. Voice Anywhere makes this process simple and efficient for all Mac users.

Privacy Benefits

This section covers important information about privacy benefits. Voice Anywhere makes this process simple and efficient for all Mac users.

Limitations

This section covers important information about limitations. Voice Anywhere makes this process simple and efficient for all Mac users.

Cloud vs On-Device

This section covers important information about cloud vs on-device. Voice Anywhere makes this process simple and efficient for all Mac users.

Which Languages Support It

This section covers important information about which languages support it. Voice Anywhere makes this process simple and efficient for all Mac users.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is on-device speech recognition private?
Yes, on-device processing keeps your voice data on your Mac. Nothing is sent to external servers, making it the most private option.
Is on-device dictation less accurate?
On-device can be slightly less accurate for complex vocabulary, but for everyday use the difference is minimal. It's also faster since there's no network latency.
What languages support on-device recognition?
Apple supports about 20 languages for on-device processing, including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Mandarin.

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