Languages · Arabic
Arabic speech to text on your Mac
NoteOwl does Arabic speech to text on your Mac with on-device AI models, writing in Arabic script. Dictate into any app, record a call or import a recording, and your voice is never sent anywhere to be transcribed.
Dictation and voice notes are free and unlimited. Pro, $79 once for one Mac, adds meetings, imported recordings, summaries and chat, with a 7-day free trial in the app and no card. Once its models are downloaded, it all works offline.
Arabic in NoteOwl
- Plan
- Dictation free and unlimited; meetings and imports in NoteOwl Pro
- Dictation and meetings
- Settings → Auto-Context → Spoken language: Auto-detect
- Imported recordings
- Language detected automatically
- On the sample
- 99.6% of the characters matched
- Where it runs
- On your Mac; offline after the one-time model download
A real sample
What does NoteOwl’s Arabic transcript look like?
Here’s a sample recording, and NoteOwl’s transcript of it, unedited. On this sample NoteOwl matched 99.6% of the characters (punctuation and spacing aside).
The recording · 0:59
A short work call between ريم and خالد. NoteOwl detected the language by itself.
NoteOwl’s transcript
In English
ممتاز وهل حسمنا مدة الورشة يوم واحد أم يومان
In English: Excellent. And have we settled how long the workshop is? One day or two?
أرى أن يوماً واحدا لا يكفي فالمحتوى كثير
In English: I think one day isn’t enough; there’s a lot of content
والتمارين العملية تحتاج إلى وقت
In English: and the practical exercises take time.
أتفق معك إذن تكون الورشة على يومين
In English: I agree with you. So the workshop will run over two days,
الأحد والاثنين
In English: Sunday and Monday.
حسنا سأرسل جدول الورشة إلى جميع المشاركين قبل يوم الخميس
In English: Okay. I’ll send the workshop schedule to all the participants before Thursday.
رائع وأنا سأتواصل مع المدرب لتأكيد المواعيد
In English: Great. And I’ll get in touch with the trainer to confirm the times.
How does NoteOwl write Arabic?
In Arabic script, without punctuation and mostly without vowel marks. The sample transcript has no commas, full stops or question marks; NoteOwl started a new line at each change of speaker instead. Tanween and shadda were mostly left off: مرحبا for مرحبًا, المدرب for المدرّب.
That is close to how many people type Arabic day to day. For formal minutes, add ، and ؟ when you edit. Numbers stayed as words: خمسة عشر موظفا (fifteen employees) and لعشرين شخصا (for twenty people).
How accurate was the Arabic sample?
99.6% of characters matched the script, ignoring punctuation and spaces. The one repeated slip was the vocative: يا ريم came out joined as يريم both times Khaled said it, while يا خالد was written correctly as two words.
Tanween appeared once, in يوماً, and was dropped from the word beside it, واحدا, so expect vowel marks to be inconsistent. Apart from the vocative and the vowel marks, every word in the call matched, including the days: الأحد والاثنين and يوم الخميس.
Does NoteOwl understand Arabic dialects?
The sample on this page is Modern Standard Arabic, and that is what we tested. Many meetings run in a spoken dialect, such as Egyptian, Gulf, Levantine or Maghrebi Arabic. We haven’t published a test of those, so try a recording of your own during the free trial.
Modern Standard Arabic is what you hear in formal settings: training sessions like the one in the sample, lectures, official meetings and the news.
Is there an Arabic setting to turn on?
No. NoteOwl knows Arabic when it hears it. The Spoken language menu under Settings → Auto-Context can pin English, Hindi, Spanish, French or German only, so for Arabic, leave it on Auto-detect.
Look at it once if your Mac’s language is English, because that is where the menu starts. While English is pinned, dictation and meetings are decoded with Latin letters only, so not one Arabic letter can appear. Imports are unaffected and always detected automatically.
How do vocabulary rules work in Arabic?
A Pro vocabulary rule replaces what NoteOwl writes with what you want, for example يريم → يا ريم. It matches only a whole word, and Arabic letters count as part of a word, so a rule never fires in the middle of a longer one.
Arabic joins و, ب, ل and ال to the word that follows, so الورشة, والورشة and بالورشة are three different words to a rule. Add each form that comes out wrong.
Is Arabic speech to text free in NoteOwl?
Yes, for dictation. Speaking Arabic into any app is free and unlimited, forever, like voice notes. Meetings, imported recordings, summaries, Chat and custom vocabulary are part of NoteOwl Pro.
NoteOwl Pro is $79 once for one Mac, with a 7-day free trial in the app and no card. Everything runs on your Mac, with the same on-device AI models on both plans.
- Dictation in Arabic, into any app
- FreeUnlimited
- ProUnlimited
- Voice notes
- FreeUnlimited
- ProUnlimited
- Arabic meetings, with no bot joining
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Imported Arabic recordings
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Summaries, action items and Chat
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Custom vocabulary
- FreeNo
- ProYes
- Read and export your own transcripts
- FreeYes
- ProYes
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Dictation in Arabic, into any app | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Voice notes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Arabic meetings, with no bot joining | No | Yes |
| Imported Arabic recordings | No | Yes |
| Summaries, action items and Chat | No | Yes |
| Custom vocabulary | No | Yes |
| Read and export your own transcripts | Yes | Yes |
FAQ
Questions about Arabic transcription
Is Arabic dictation free?
Yes. Arabic dictation into any app and voice notes are free with no cap: tap fn, speak, tap fn again, and the Arabic text types at the cursor. Pro, one $79 payment for one Mac, adds meetings, imports, summaries, chat and memory, and its 7-day in-app trial asks for no card.
Does Arabic transcription work offline?
Yes; the speech models run on your Mac. The first Auto-detect dictation and the first import can each download a model part you haven’t used yet, so run both once while online. After that, Arabic works with no connection at all.
Does NoteOwl recognise Arabic automatically?
Imported files, always. Dictation and meetings, while Spoken language is on Auto-detect; pinned to English, no Arabic script can come out.
Can I import an Arabic recording?
Yes, with Pro or during the trial. A recorded lecture, a training session or a call saved as m4a, mp3, wav or mp4 can go through Import Recording in Transcripts or be dropped in. NoteOwl detects Arabic, transcribes it locally and separates the speakers.
Does it work for meetings in Arabic?
Yes, with Pro. It records through your microphone and your Mac’s audio, so there is no bot to invite. When the meeting ends you have the Arabic transcript by speaker, a summary and action items.
How accurate is NoteOwl in Arabic?
On this Modern Standard Arabic sample, 99.6% of characters matched once punctuation and spaces were set aside. Try it on your own calls during the trial.
Related
- All 34 languages The languages NoteOwl understands, grouped by region.
- Free speech to text for Mac Tap fn in any app, talk, and the words type at your cursor.
- Transcribe audio to text Import a recording and get a transcript with speakers and a time on every line.
- AI meeting notes without a bot Record calls from your Mac, with nothing joining the meeting.
- Offline AI meeting notes Transcripts, summaries and Chat with no internet connection.
- Hindi speech to text Hear a Hindi sample and read NoteOwl’s transcript of it.
- French speech to text Hear a French sample and read NoteOwl’s transcript of it.
- Russian speech to text Hear a Russian sample and read NoteOwl’s transcript of it.
Keep exploring
More languages
- Chinese speech to textChinese dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
- Hindi speech to textHindi dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
- Japanese speech to textJapanese dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
- Korean speech to textKorean dictation, meetings and imported recordings transcribed on your Mac, with a real NoteOwl transcript of a sample recording
Dictation, meetings and recordings
- Free dictation into any appFree, unlimited speech to text in every app on your Mac: tap fn, talk, and the words type at your cursor; one tap polishes them in the right tone for that app
- Audio to textTranscription software for your Mac: drop in an audio or video file and get a speaker-labelled transcript with timestamps, unlimited, with nothing uploaded
- AI meeting notes without a botHow NoteOwl records calls from your Mac with no bot joining, and what you get when the call ends
Transcribe Arabic on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
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