Support
Need a hand with WaveOne? Reach out any time and we'll get back to you, usually within a business day.
Email us
The fastest way to get help is by email: [email protected]
Include your macOS version, the app you were dictating into, and what you expected versus what happened, so we can help faster.
How do I dictate?
Hold your shortcut, say what you mean, and let go. The text appears where your cursor already was.
There are three of them, and which one you press decides what happens: ⌥D dictates, ⌥T dictates and translates in one press, and ⌥P dictates and lets a language model tidy the wording before it lands. All three can be changed in Settings ▸ Shortcuts.
If you would rather not hold a key down, switch the trigger to tap once to start and tap again to stop, on the same settings page.
⌥D used to type ∂. Now it does not. Why?
A combination registered as a global shortcut is taken by the system and never reaches the app you are typing in, so while WaveOne is running, ⌥D, ⌥T and ⌥P stop producing ∂, † and π.
If you type those characters, rebind in Settings ▸ Shortcuts. ⌃⌥D is offered there as a one-click alternative, and is what WaveOne shipped with before: adding ⌃ means the combination produces no character at all.
I pressed the polish shortcut and it refused.
Polishing needs a language model to do it: either Apple Intelligence, which needs macOS 26 or later, or one of the cloud engines you set up in Settings ▸ Translation. With neither in place, that shortcut says so before you speak rather than taking a sentence it cannot deliver. Your other shortcuts are unaffected.
There is no app-wide polish switch to find. The only thing that decides whether a take is tidied is which shortcut you started it with.
Does my voice go to the cloud?
No. Speech recognition runs on your Mac, and there is no cloud recognition mode in WaveOne at all. On macOS 26 it uses Apple's built-in speech engine, with nothing to download. On macOS 15 through 25 it downloads one compact model the first time and works locally from then on.
Can I use WaveOne with no network at all?
Yes. Once the model is in place, dictation, your vocabulary, the history and the insertion itself all work with the network off. On macOS 26 there is nothing to download in the first place. Apple's on-device translation needs its language pack downloaded once, in Settings ▸ Translation. Only cloud translation and cloud polishing need a connection, and both are optional.
The text went to my clipboard instead of my cursor. Why?
Some text fields refuse text written into them. When that happens WaveOne copies the take for you and says so on screen, so you can paste it yourself rather than say it again. It also does it on purpose in a password field, where it never types and marks the copy as concealed.
If it happens in every app rather than in one, WaveOne will show you what to put right the next time you press the shortcut.
It keeps getting the same word wrong.
Teach it. WaveOne keeps a vocabulary in two layers: bias terms, which nudge the recognizer before it decides, and replacement rules, which correct the text after it comes out.
The fastest way in is from the history: open the take that came out wrong, select the part that is wrong, and type what it should have been. The rule is written for you. You can also add entries by hand in Settings ▸ Vocabulary, and import or export the lot as CSV.
Can I speak one language and insert another?
Yes, with the second shortcut. Translation runs on your Mac by default through Apple's built-in engine, and the recording panel shows the direction the whole time. Download the language pack you need once in Settings ▸ Translation; it is never downloaded in the middle of a dictation. If translation cannot run for any reason, WaveOne inserts what you actually said and tells you why.
Which translation engines are supported?
27, including Apple's on-device translator, DeepL, Google, Microsoft, Tencent, Baidu, Youdao, Alibaba, Volcano Engine, Amazon, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, Doubao, Qwen, ERNIE, Hunyuan, Groq, Azure OpenAI, aggregators like OpenRouter, 302.AI and AiHubMix, and any OpenAI-compatible model you run yourself in Ollama or LM Studio. The current list is always in the app under Settings ▸ Translation. WaveOne talks to each one directly with your own key, so there is no relay server in between. Optional polishing borrows the engine you already set up there, so you never configure the same provider twice.
Is my dictation history saved? What about audio?
Every take that produced text goes into a local, searchable history on your Mac, so you can find it again, copy it, or correct a word into your vocabulary. Cancelled and silent takes are not saved, and neither is anything dictated into a password field. You can favorite entries, cap how many are kept, and clear the lot.
Audio recordings are off by default, and while they are off no audio file is written at all. If you turn them on in Settings ▸ History, you can see how much space they use and delete all of them at once.
Where are my API keys stored?
API keys, tokens, and secrets are stored in the macOS Keychain on your device. They're used only to authenticate requests to the service they belong to and are never sent anywhere else. For more, see the Privacy Policy.
How do the free trial and purchase work?
WaveOne is free to try for 14 days, with every feature unlocked and no purchase required. After that, keep it with a monthly or yearly subscription, or unlock it for good with a one-time purchase. Everything goes through Apple's App Store, and subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel them in your App Store settings.
When the trial ends, WaveOne stops starting new dictations. Everything you already have stays open to you: your history, your vocabulary, exports, backups and every setting. If you have already bought or subscribed, use Restore Purchases in the app's settings to unlock it on a new Mac.
Something isn't working. What should I send?
Email us with your macOS version, the app you were dictating into, the engine you are using, and a short description of what you expected versus what happened. A screenshot of any message WaveOne showed helps a lot.