Everything SaySo does
Hold a key, talk, let go — SaySo types it for you, in almost any app. Here's every part of it, in plain words: what it does, and the few things it doesn't. Open any section.
One key does all the talking — your talk key. Out of the box it's Right ⌥ Option MAC or Caps Lock WINDOWS. Change it any time in Settings → Dictation → Talk key — almost any key works.
- Hold to talk — like a walkie-talkie. Hold the key, say your bit, let go. Your words appear where your cursor is. This is the everyday way.
- Hands-free — double-tap the key quickly and recording locks on (a 🔒 shows on the pill). Talk hands-free, then tap once to stop.
Wherever your cursor is blinking — email, chat, a doc, code — that's where your words appear. Nothing to copy or paste.
A completed dictation is normally saved to your History too — so if it lands in the wrong window, you can copy it back. And if typing ever fails, SaySo tells you — your words are in History, and if even saving failed, the text goes to your clipboard so it's not lost.
Talk naturally — umms and all — and SaySo tidies it. You pick how in Settings → Dictation → Cleanup style. Five choices:
Formal has three strengths — set in Settings → Dictation → Formal strength: Light (a gentle polish that keeps your own wording), Medium (the default — polished and professional), and Strong (a fully formal, business-style rewrite). It's designed to formalize only what you said and to avoid adding greetings or thanks you didn't. Strong needs your language set to English; Auto and other languages use Medium.
- Recognized code editors & terminals → As-spoken
- Recognized email apps → Formal
- Very short notes → Brush-up
- Everything else → Clean
It recognizes apps by name, so a familiar mail app or editor is spotted automatically. Something it doesn't recognize — say email open in a browser tab, or a less common editor — just gets Clean. Pin it with a per-app rule (section 04) if you want.
By default SaySo picks a style per app (that's Auto). Want a specific app pinned to one style forever? Set a rule in Settings → Per-app rules and it always wins.
It suggests apps you've already dictated into, so you don't have to type the name exactly.
When you're not talking, SaySo shrinks to a tiny pill at the edge of your screen and stays out of your way. It's click-through — your clicks pass right past it.
- Hover your mouse over the pill — the dotted grip ⠿ appears on its left.
- Click and hold the grip, then drag the pill anywhere.
- Let go to drop it. SaySo remembers the spot, even after a restart.
- A quiet bar — idle, not listening.
- A moving equalizer — listening; the bars follow how loud you are.
- A padlock 🔒 — hands-free is locked on; tap your key once to stop.
SaySo starts in English, which is the most accurate. Change it under Settings → Language.
- Auto — detects 10 languages on the fly (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hindi, Russian, Japanese), even if you switch mid-sentence.
- A single language — most accurate for that one, and covers languages beyond the 10 too (Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Swedish and more).
- Roman — speak Hindi or Urdu and have it typed in regular English letters, the way people text it. (This one uses your Groq key.)
Open the SaySo window (the three-line button on the pill, or the menu-bar icon) and you land on History — your past dictations, so you can find and reuse them.
- Search anything you've dictated, and filter by style (All · Formal · Clean · Raw · Roman).
- Copy any entry — handy if it didn't paste in the moment.
- Show original / cleaned — flip between your exact words and the tidied version.
- Re-polish — re-run an older note as a Formal version (needs your Groq key; not available for Roman entries).
- Delete entries you don't want.
- Load older dictations — the list shows your most recent 200; a button at the bottom keeps loading further back whenever there's more.
- Export everything as a CSV file — the download button (↓) saves your full history to your Downloads folder as a spreadsheet: date, app, style, language, how it was processed, your exact words and the final text. Handy for your own records — or for sending to SaySo support when something needs a closer look.
Names, brands or jargon SaySo keeps mishearing? Teach it once in Settings → Your words: add the correct spelling and, if it's often misheard, what it sounds like. From then on it nudges recognition toward them and swaps the misheard versions for the right spelling.
You can also do this on the spot from History with “Teach SaySo a word” — turn a specific mishearing into a permanent fix.
Settings → Your words → Import a list takes a pasted list — one word or name per line — or a CSV file (first column the word, second column optional “sounds like” variants; Excel saves this format directly) and adds everything in one go, skipping duplicates automatically. Copy all as CSV exports your current list the same way, so you can share it or move it to another computer. Don't have a list? The import screen includes a ready-made prompt you can paste into your own ChatGPT or Claude: it asks your AI to gather the names, products and jargon from your past conversations, and you paste the result back into SaySo. You can re-import any time to append more, and edit or remove any word afterwards.
SaySo has no subscription because it runs on your own accounts. You set your keys once, in Settings → Your keys — Deepgram is required, Groq is optional — and SaySo tests each one before saving.
Your audio goes to your Deepgram account to become text. That text is sent to your Groq account only when it needs AI — Clean, Formal, re-polish, or Roman. With As-spoken or Brush-up, nothing ever goes to Groq. Either way, nothing goes to SaySo's servers — your history lives only on your computer, and your keys sit safely in its keychain.
Open Settings from the History screen. Sections are collapsed so you see them all at a glance. Here's every control.
Always at the top — tells you if you're on the latest version, with a button to check again or get the update.
Right below it, always visible: your live Deepgram balance — "Deepgram credit: $12.40 — you're good." When it runs low it turns into a warning with a Top up ↗ button. (Shown when your key allows reading the balance — most do.)
Covered in sections 09, 06, 08 and 04 above — they each live in their own Settings section.
SaySo lives in your menu bar MAC / system tray WIN and keeps running there. Click its icon for:
- Open SaySo — the main window (history & settings).
- Preferences… — jump to settings.
- Polish — make it formal — a quick toggle that flips everything to the formal style, then back to whatever you were using before.
- Quit SaySo — fully close it.
At the top of the SaySo window, next to the theme switch, there's a small bell. It's SaySo's inbox for anything that needs your attention — and unlike a pop-up, its messages stay there until you've seen them. A little badge shows how many are new.
- Deepgram credit is running low — with the amount left, before dictation ever stops.
- Deepgram credit has run out — filed the moment a dictation actually fails for it.
- AI rate limit reached — your Groq key got throttled, so cleanups temporarily ran simpler.
- A new SaySo version is available.
- Opening the inbox clears the badge; new arrivals stay highlighted.
- Each message has an action button where it helps — Top up ↗, Get the update ↗.
- Dismiss (✕) silences that problem for good — it only returns if the problem genuinely goes away and then happens again. No nagging about the same thing.
- Warnings clear themselves when the cause is fixed — top up your credit and the credit warnings simply disappear.
- One purchase ($19.99, once) works on 2 devices.
- Moving to a new machine? Deactivate an old device in Settings to free a slot, then activate the new one.
- If a license is turned off (say, a refund), SaySo tells you and stays open — enter a valid key to keep going.
SaySo quietly checks for a new version and tells you when one's ready — a banner appears, and a message lands under the bell icon in the title bar (SaySo's notification inbox, where things like a low Deepgram balance show up too). Get the update opens the download page — you install it yourself, about a minute.
The first time you open SaySo it walks you through a short setup, one thing per screen, and remembers where you left off.
- Unlock — paste your SAYSO-… license key.
- Microphone — allow it. MAC
- Accessibility — allow SaySo to type for you. MAC
- Talk key — press the key you want to hold.
- Deepgram key — paste it (a free account comes with $200 of listening).
- Try your voice — a quick live test, so you feel it work. Skippable.
- Groq key — optional, unlocks full Clean & Formal. (Required only for Roman languages.)
- All set — start talking.
Just as useful to know — so there are no surprises.
- No monthly subscription. One purchase; your only running cost is your own usage — Deepgram (cheap, pay-as-you-speak) and Groq (optional, free tier subject to its limits).
- It doesn't send your voice or text to us. Everything goes through your own accounts.
- No cloud sync between devices. History lives on each machine on its own.
- No AI-model picker in the app — it uses good defaults so you don't fiddle.
- No separate beep/sound switch, and no type-vs-paste chooser — just Auto-paste on/off.
- It won't type into password fields on Mac — the system blocks that on purpose.