Settings reference

Dictation

Setting	Default	What it does
Hotkey	fn / 🌐 Globe	The key you hold to talk. Fourteen options — see Hotkeys.
Max take length	5 minutes	Safety cap per dictation (1, 2, 5, or 10 minutes). On reaching it the take is finished and inserted, never discarded.
Paste automatically	On	Inserts text at your cursor. Off means the app transcribes but leaves insertion to you — see How text is inserted.
Show words as you speak	On	Live partial transcript in the HUD. Costs a little compute; turn off to save battery.
Start when you log in	On	Registers OpenVoiceFlow as a login item. A menu-bar utility that vanishes on reboot reads as broken, so this defaults on.
Show in Dock	On	Off makes the app menu-bar only. The dashboard is still reachable from the menu bar.

Transcription — on this Mac

Setting	Default	What it does
Whisper model	Chosen during onboarding	Which engine transcribes your speech. Changing it here loads the new model immediately — see Whisper models.
Language	English	The language you dictate in. Eleven options — see Languages.

AI cleanup

Setting	Default	What it does
Clean up my dictation	Off	Master switch. Off means raw on-device transcript and no network request at all.
Provider	—	Which backend performs cleanup — see Choosing a backend.
API key	Empty	Stored in the macOS Keychain, per provider — see API keys.
Model override	Empty	Use a specific model instead of the provider default. Empty means the default.

Privacy & updates

Setting	Default	What it does
Reveal in Finder	—	Opens the folder holding your settings, history, and personalization files.
Delete history…	—	Clears dictation history, with the option to keep your first-ever transcript.
Show what was typed in the HUD	On	Echoes the tail of inserted text. Turn off when dictating sensitive material — the HUD shows a word count instead.
Automatic updates	On	Checks for signed updates in the background daily and installs them on next launch — see Updates.

Permissions

The top card shows the state of each of the three macOS permissions with a button to grant or open System Settings. Full detail in Permissions.

Where settings are stored

~/Library/Application Support/OpenVoiceFlow/settings.json, excluding API keys, which live in the Keychain. The file is written atomically, and an unrecognized or missing field falls back to its default rather than resetting everything — so a settings file from an older version keeps working after an update.