Handy

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A free, open source, and extensible speech-to-text application that works completely offline.

Handy is a cross-platform desktop application built with Tauri (Rust + React/TypeScript) that provides simple, privacy-focused speech transcription. Press a shortcut, speak, and have your words appear in any text field—all without sending your voice to the cloud.

Why Handy?

Handy was created to fill the gap for a truly open source, extensible speech-to-text tool. As stated on handy.computer (https://handy.computer):

• Free: Accessibility tooling belongs in everyone's hands, not behind a paywall
• Open Source: Together we can build further. Extend Handy for yourself and contribute to something bigger
• Private: Your voice stays on your computer. Get transcriptions without sending audio to the cloud
• Simple: One tool, one job. Transcribe what you say and put it into a text box

Handy isn't trying to be the best speech-to-text app—it's trying to be the most forkable one.

How It Works

1. Press a configurable keyboard shortcut to start/stop recording (or use push-to-talk mode)
2. Speak your words while the shortcut is active
3. Release and Handy processes your speech using Whisper
4. Get your transcribed text pasted directly into whatever app you're using

The process is entirely local:

• Silence is filtered using VAD (Voice Activity Detection) with Silero
• Transcription uses your choice of models:
  • Whisper models (Small/Medium/Turbo/Large) with GPU acceleration when available
  • Parakeet V3 - CPU-optimized model with excellent performance and automatic language detection
• Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Quick Start

Installation

1. Download the latest release from the releases page (https://github.com/cjpais/Handy/releases) or the website (https://handy.computer)
2. Install the application following platform-specific instructions
3. Launch Handy and grant necessary system permissions (microphone, accessibility)
4. Configure your preferred keyboard shortcuts in Settings
5. Start transcribing!

Development Setup

For detailed build instructions including platform-specific requirements, see BUILD.md.

Architecture

Handy is built as a Tauri application combining:

• Frontend: React + TypeScript with Tailwind CSS for the settings UI
• Backend: Rust for system integration, audio processing, and ML inference
• Core Libraries:
  • whisper-rs: Local speech recognition with Whisper models
  • transcription-rs: CPU-optimized speech recognition with Parakeet models
  • cpal: Cross-platform audio I/O
  • vad-rs: Voice Activity Detection
  • rdev: Global keyboard shortcuts and system events
  • rubato: Audio resampling

Debug Mode

Handy includes an advanced debug mode for development and troubleshooting. Access it by pressing:

• macOS: Cmd+Shift+D
• Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+D

Known Issues & Current Limitations

This project is actively being developed and has some known issues (https://github.com/cjpais/Handy/issues). We believe in transparency about the current state:

Major Issues (Help Wanted)

Whisper Model Crashes:

• Whisper models crash on certain system configurations (Windows and Linux)
• Does not affect all systems - issue is configuration-dependent
  • If you experience crashes and are a developer, please help to fix and provide debug logs!

Wayland Support (Linux):

• Limited or no support for Wayland display server
• On Wayland the clipboard-based paste options (Clipboard (CTRL+V) / Clipboard (Shift+Insert)) copy the transcription once, then try to run wtype (https://github.com/atx/wtype) (preferred) or dotool (https://sr.ht/~geb/dotool/) to fire the paste keystroke. Install one of these tools to let Handy drive the compositor-friendly paste shortcut; otherwise it falls back to Enigo-generated key events, which may not work on Wayland.