Canto
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subtankVoice and meetings
Everything on this page happens on your Mac. Dictation and live transcription use Whisper models that run in Canto; reading aloud uses the voices that come with macOS; meetings use macOS's own speech recognition and your model on the Mac. No audio is ever uploaded.
Turn voice on#
Dictation and reading aloud are off until you turn them on: open Settings › Models › Voice and switch on Dictation. Then get a dictation model from the list below it (Get downloads it from Hugging Face; the download says how big it is and can be cancelled):
| Model | Languages | In Canto's words |
|---|---|---|
| Whisper Large v3 Turbo | 99 | Fast and accurate; the default |
| Whisper Large v3 Turbo · Korean-tuned | Korean only | Listed first when you dictate in Korean; about 16% errors on its test set, down from 24% |
| Whisper Large v3 | 99 | The most accurate, and the slowest |
| Whisper Medium | 99 | Smaller and a little less accurate than Large v3 Turbo |
| Whisper Large v3 · Italian-tuned | Italian only | Fine-tuned on Italian speech |
"99 languages" is OpenAI's own claim; it's strongest in about ten of them.
The same row has Dictation language and Try it, which listens for five seconds and shows what the model heard. Its ⋯ menu has Add a period at the end.
The first time Canto records, macOS asks for the microphone. If you said no, the Microphone row in the same section says so; turn it on in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone.
Dictation#
Press ⇧⌘V where you're typing to start, and again to stop. In a note, the words go into the note. In Ask, press the microphone, which is the composer's button while the message field is empty. ⌘K's Toggle dictation works too.
You can change the keys in Settings › Keyboard.
Read aloud#
Select text and press ⇧⌘R to hear it, or press it with nothing selected to hear the whole note. ⌘K has Read selection aloud, Read this document aloud and Stop reading aloud.
Canto uses macOS's voices. Choose one, and its speed and pitch, under Read aloud in Settings › Models › Voice.
In Ask's message field, ⇧⌘R turns Think on or off instead; see Keyboard shortcuts.
Live transcription#
⌘T, or / › Live transcription… in a note, opens a panel that turns speech into text as you talk:
- Start recording, then Stop when you're done. Text appears in chunks of about 10 to 30 seconds, using your dictation model.
- Copy copies the transcript.
- Insert into note puts it in the note; while recording, Stream into note adds it as it comes.
It needs a dictation model first; the panel says so and links to Settings › Models › Voice.
Meetings#
Meeting capture records a meeting on your Mac and writes a note from it. It's part of Pro, and each Mac gets three free tries.
Record a meeting#
Start one with ⌘K's Start meeting, or right-click Meetings in the sidebar's Library and choose Record a meeting. Before anything is recorded, a sheet shows:
- that the meeting stays on your Mac, and a reminder to tell everyone you're recording (in some places you need their consent),
- what to record: My microphone, or Microphone and this Mac's sound (the other people on a call),
- the Language: the Mac's language, English, or 한국어 (Korean),
- what happens to The recording: Keep it for 30 days, Keep it, or Delete it once it's transcribed,
- and anything that would stop it working, such as a permission macOS refused.
Start recording begins. If macOS needs its speech model for that language, the key says Download and record: macOS downloads it once, from Apple. Your audio never leaves your Mac.
While it records#
A capsule with a crimson dot and the time stays on screen above everything, so you never forget the microphone is on. It has a level meter for You (your microphone) and Others (the Mac's sound), Pause and Resume, Stop, and Cancel.
After Stop, the capsule says what Canto is doing (transcribing, Writing summary…, Saving the note…) until the note opens. If Canto quits during a meeting, it offers to finish it the next time it opens.
The meeting note#
The note has a Summary, Decisions, Action items and the Transcript, plus the recording if you kept it. The summary is written by your model on the Mac. Meeting notes get the meeting tag, and Meetings in the sidebar's Library lists them, newest first.
What meetings need#
- Transcripts need macOS 26 or later. On macOS 14 and 15 the recording is attached to the note without a transcript.
- Recording the Mac's sound needs macOS 14.4 or later, and macOS asks you to allow it. Without it, only your microphone is recorded.
- Transcripts don't tell the other people on a call apart: everyone on the Mac's side is "Others". There's no live word-by-word text while you record.
Meeting defaults are in Settings › Memory & privacy › Meetings: Keep recordings (30 days), Record this Mac's sound (on) and Meeting language (Automatic). Meetings are never sent to a server or a cloud model.