Choose a local model
The whole on-device catalogue: nine Whisper sizes, Parakeet TDT v3, four Qwen3-ASR variants. What each one weighs and what it runs on.
Open Settings → Voice input → Local model. On macOS the picker is grouped into Whisper, Parakeet and Qwen3-ASR, and every row names the processor it will use. On Windows it is one flat list with a VRAM dot per row. Linux does not expose a local model picker at all: the AppImage runs Whisper on the CPU.
Three engines share that one picker. If you are not sure which family you want, start from Which model should you use?. What follows is the reference: what exists, what it weighs, what it is good at.
Whisper
The broadest option: 99 languages, nine sizes, the same list on every platform.
The q5_0, q5_1 and q8_0 in the file names are quantisation levels. A lower number means a smaller file and slightly coarser weights. Dimmy only ships quantised builds, so there is no full-precision row to compare against.
Parakeet TDT v3
One row in the picker, two very different builds underneath. On macOS it is a CoreML bundle of about 466 MB that runs on the Neural Engine. On Windows it is an ONNX bundle of about 2.5 GB that runs on the CPU. Same model, same quality, wildly different download.
- Fast, and strong on European languages.
- It takes no language argument at all, so the Language setting has no effect on it. See Pick the dictation language.
- On Windows, anything longer than two minutes is split and stitched back together automatically, because the model itself breaks somewhere past five minutes of audio in one go.
Qwen3-ASR
The newest engine, and the one that measured best on messy conversational speech and on acronyms. It needs its language named rather than left on Auto.
Each GPU variant is a pair of files, the model plus an audio projector, and both have to be on disk before the row counts as downloaded. The two Neural Engine variants only appear on Apple Silicon running macOS 15 or newer; on any other machine they are not listed rather than offered and then failing.
What the rows tell you
- A green check means the model is already on disk. Rows you have not downloaded show their size instead.
- On macOS each row also names where it will run. A Whisper row says Neural Engine only when that model's own Core ML encoder is on disk, and GPU otherwise.
- On Windows each row can carry a coloured dot read from your graphics card: green means it fits comfortably, amber means it fits but may fail once Whisper is also resident, red means it is too large. No dot means Dimmy could not read your VRAM and will not guess.
- Nothing is ever hidden or blocked because of your hardware. The dots are advice, not a gate.
Download flow
- Pick a model from the list.
- Click Download. A progress bar shows the current MB of the total, and an interrupted download resumes where it stopped rather than starting over.
- When it finishes the model becomes active automatically.
- Earlier models stay on disk.
The Neural Engine row on macOS
Whisper's encoder can move off the GPU and onto the Neural Engine, which is the difference between a long meeting slowing Dimmy down and a long meeting slowing the whole Mac down. Dimmy offers the encoder as a separate download for the selected model, around 1.2 GB for the large ones. The first transcription afterwards takes a few minutes while macOS compiles the model for your specific machine, once. The Distil models have no Core ML encoder, so no offer appears for them.