Koe (声)

A background-first macOS voice input tool. Press a hotkey, speak, and the corrected text is pasted into whatever app you're using.

For more information, visit the documentation at [koe.li](https://koe.li).

The Name

Koe (声, pronounced "ko-eh") is the Japanese word for voice. Written as こえ in hiragana, it's one of the most fundamental words in the language — simple, clear, and direct. That's exactly the philosophy behind this tool: your voice goes in, clean text comes out, with nothing in between. No flashy UI, no unnecessary steps. Just 声 — voice, in its purest form.

Why Koe?

I tried nearly every voice input app on the market. They were either paid, ugly, or inconvenient — bloated UIs, clunky dictionary management, and too many clicks to do simple things.

Koe takes a different approach:

• Minimal runtime UI. Koe stays out of the way with a menu bar item, a small floating status pill with native frosted-glass vibrancy during active sessions, optional post-processing template actions above the result bubble, and an optional built-in settings window when you actually need to configure it.
• All configuration lives in plain text files under ~/.koe/. You can edit them with any text editor, vim, a script, or the built-in settings UI.
• Dictionary is a plain `.txt` file. No need to open an app and add words one by one through a GUI. Just edit ~/.koe/dictionary.txt — one term per line. You can even use Claude Code or other AI tools to bulk-generate domain-specific terms.
• Changes take effect immediately. Edit any config file and the new settings are used automatically. ASR, LLM, dictionary, and prompt changes apply on the next hotkey press. Hotkey changes are detected within a few seconds. No restart, no reload button.
• Tiny footprint. Even after installation, Koe stays under 15 MB, and its memory usage is typically around 20 MB. It launches fast, wastes almost no disk space, and stays out of your way.
• Built with native macOS technologies. Objective-C handles hotkeys, audio capture, clipboard access, permissions, and paste automation directly through Apple's own APIs.
• Rust does the heavy lifting. The performance-critical core runs in Rust, which gives Koe low overhead, fast execution, and strong memory safety guarantees.
• No Chromium tax. Many comparable Electron-based apps ship at 200+ MB and carry the overhead of an embedded Chromium runtime. Koe avoids that entire stack, which helps keep memory usage low and the app feeling lightweight.