Desktop

The Sonera desktop app runs on Windows and provides free local transcription via Whisper AI.

Requirements

  • Windows 10 or later (64-bit)
  • 4 GB RAM minimum, 8 GB recommended
  • Microphone (built-in or external)
  • GPU with CUDA support (optional — improves transcription speed)

Keyboard Shortcuts

All hotkeys are configurable in Settings → Controls.

  • Dictation hotkey — Start / stop recording (default: F9)
  • AI edit hotkey — AI-edit selected text (default: F10)

Whisper Models

The desktop app ships with the Whisper base model by default. You can switch to larger models in Settings → Transcription:

  • tiny — Fastest, lowest accuracy
  • base — Good balance (default)
  • small — Better accuracy, slower
  • medium — High accuracy, requires more RAM

System Tray

Sonera runs in the system tray. Right-click the tray icon to access settings, view history, or quit the app. The icon color changes based on status.

Custom Vocabulary

Add technical terms, names, or abbreviations in Settings → Vocabulary. Sonera will prioritize these when transcribing, improving accuracy for domain-specific language.

AI Editing (Cloud)

Select text and press your AI edit hotkey, then speak your editing instruction (e.g., "make it formal", "translate to English"). You can also create fully custom prompt profiles for complete control over how the AI processes your text.

Command mode — "Sonera, ..."

Start your dictation with the wake word "Sonera" to give an instruction instead of dictating text — e.g., "Sonera, summarize this as bullet points". The AI then edits the field's existing content. Command mode is opt-in and ships with built-in safeguards: it never runs in password fields and you can block apps where it shouldn't be used.

File transcription

Drag and drop audio or video files (WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A, MP4, MKV, WebM) onto the files tab to transcribe them. The result is split into paragraphs and can be AI-edited afterwards.

Personal style

Sonera can rewrite dictated text in your own style. Calibrate your style in the mobile app's style wizard — it syncs to desktop and is applied automatically during AI editing.

Local AI editing (Ollama)

If you run Ollama on your computer, AI editing can run fully locally too — free and offline, just like transcription. Pick Ollama as your AI provider in Settings and point it at any local model.

Prompt profiles & app profiles

Create prompt profiles for different tasks — say, code comments or formal emails — and link them to specific programs. Dictate in Word and the right profile is picked automatically.