Alder in one sentence
Alder turns voice into finished writing or contextual work across macOS while keeping the product workflow on the Apple silicon already in your Mac.
Two explicit voice routes
- Choose Dictation or Command. One take writes; the other asks, transforms, summarizes, or plans.
- Mount context when it matters. Attach selected text, a screen, file, page, History result, or Library item.
- Speak naturally. Alder prepares the voice and context for the route you selected.
- Keep the right result. Dictation verifies the cursor; Command keeps a visible, recoverable response.
Read the complete voice workflows for Mac guide.
Context that follows the work—not every app on your Mac
Alder uses context you deliberately attach to a take. A screenshot stays distinct from a file, selected text stays distinct from a web page, and Library material changes a workflow only when you explicitly attach it. That makes the source set understandable and recoverable.
Explore voice with context, Command mode, and the private Library.
Designed around real dictation, not a perfect demo
Real voice workflows include the wrong microphone, quiet input, accents, names, filler words, app switching, interrupted processing, and text fields that refuse insertion. Alder’s pipeline has been shaped around those failure modes and user feedback: signal protection before inference, language-aware local engines, personal vocabulary, conservative cleanup, recoverable recordings, and a focus check before text reaches the cursor.
That is what “optimized for Mac” means here: not only running an algorithm locally, but turning Apple silicon into a dependable end-to-end writing workflow that survives everyday use.
What makes Alder different
“Offline transcription” does not always mean a fully private workflow. Some dictation tools recognize speech locally but send the transcript to a cloud language model for cleanup. Alder keeps both recognition and cleanup on the Mac. It also favors faithful cleanup over aggressive rewriting, so the result remains your meaning and your voice.
Alder puts the hardware already in your Mac to work. Its pipeline is designed for Apple silicon, selects an appropriate local speech engine, protects interrupted recordings, and verifies the destination before inserting text. It is a native voice workflow, not a thin Mac interface around a remote transcription or rewriting API.
Compared with Apple’s built-in Dictation, Alder adds filler and repeat cleanup, personal vocabulary, exact replacements, voice-triggered snippets, 99 language routes, local translation, history, and interrupted-session recovery.
Who Alder is for
Alder is designed for writers, developers, students, researchers, and professionals who want fast private Dictation plus a deliberate way to ask and transform the material already in their work.
For a privacy-focused buying checklist, read How to choose an on-device dictation app for Mac.