How do I get live captions for any audio on a Mac?

How it works

Start listening from the menu bar. The first time, macOS asks for permission to record system audio, and for the microphone if you turn it on. Your Mac’s sound is labelled Them; your microphone is You.

While someone is speaking, captions drop down from the notch with a level meter and a red dot showing it’s listening. Words appear lighter while they’re still being recognised and settle as they’re confirmed. When the speaking stops, the notch tucks away.

Prefer a window?

The floating glass panel shows the running transcript in a window you can move anywhere and pin above other windows. If another app already uses the notch, Live Transcript makes room for it.

Choosing a speech engine

Choose Apple Speech, or Whisper in three sizes: Low (145 MB), Medium (216 MB) or High (632 MB), each downloaded the first time you use it. Larger Whisper models are generally more accurate and use more power. The engine wizard has you read a passage aloud once and shows how each engine did with your voice.

What you need

A Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 26 or later.