cjpais/Handy

Handy

A free, open source, and extensible speech-to-text application that works completely offline.

Handy is a cross-platform desktop application that provides simple, privacy-focused speech transcription. Press a shortcut, speak, and have your words appear in any text field. This happens on your own computer without sending any information to the cloud.

Why Handy?

Handy was created to fill the gap for a truly open source, extensible speech-to-text tool. As stated on handy.computer:

• Free: Accessibility tooling belongs in everyone's hands, not behind a paywall
• Open Source: Together we can build further. Extend Handy for yourself and contribute to something bigger
• Private: Your voice stays on your computer. Get transcriptions without sending audio to the cloud
• Simple: One tool, one job. Transcribe what you say and put it into a text box

Handy isn't trying to be the best speech-to-text app—it's trying to be the most forkable one.

How It Works

1. Press a configurable keyboard shortcut to start/stop recording (or use push-to-talk mode)
2. Speak your words while the shortcut is active
3. Release and Handy processes your speech using Whisper
4. Get your transcribed text pasted directly into whatever app you're using

The process is entirely local:

• Silence is filtered using VAD (Voice Activity Detection) with Silero
• Transcription uses your choice of models:
  • Whisper models (Small/Medium/Turbo/Large) with GPU acceleration when available
  • Parakeet V3 - CPU-optimized model with excellent performance and automatic language detection
• Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Quick Start

Installation

1. Download the latest release from the releases page or the website
   • macOS: Also available via Homebrew cask: brew install --cask handy
   • Windows: Also available via winget: winget install cjpais.Handy
     Note: The Homebrew cask and winget package are not maintained by the Handy developers.
2. Install the application
3. Launch Handy and grant necessary system permissions (microphone, accessibility)
4. Configure your preferred keyboard shortcuts in Settings
5. Start transcribing!

Development Setup

For detailed build instructions including platform-specific requirements, see BUILD.md.

Integrations

Control Handy from Raycast — start/stop recording, browse transcript history, manage dictionary, switch models and languages.

Source · by @mattiacolombomc

Architecture

Handy is built as a Tauri application combining:

• Frontend: React + TypeScript with Tailwind CSS for the settings UI
• Backend: Rust for system integration, audio processing, and ML inference
• Core Libraries:
  • transcribe-cpp: Local speech recognition with Whisper-family models (GGML/GGUF)
  • transcribe-rs: CPU-optimized speech recognition with Parakeet models
  • cpal: Cross-platform audio I/O
  • vad-rs: Voice Activity Detection
  • rdev: Global keyboard shortcuts and system events
  • rubato: Audio resampling

Debug Mode

Handy includes an advanced debug mode for development and troubleshooting. Access it by pressing:

• macOS: Cmd+Shift+D
• Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+D

CLI Parameters

Handy supports command-line flags for controlling a running instance and customizing startup behavior. These work on all platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux).

Remote control flags (sent to an already-running instance via the single-instance plugin):

handy --toggle-transcription    # Toggle recording on/off
handy --toggle-post-process     # Toggle recording with post-processing on/off
handy --cancel                  # Cancel the current operation

Startup flags:

handy --start-hidden            # Start without showing the main window
handy --no-tray                 # Start without the system tray icon
handy --debug                   # Enable debug mode with verbose logging
handy --help                    # Show all available flags

Flags can be combined for autostart scenarios:

handy --start-hidden --no-tray

macOS tip: When Handy is installed as an app bundle, invoke the binary directly:

/Applications/Handy.app/Contents/MacOS/Handy --toggle-transcription

Known Issues & Current Limitations

This project is actively being developed and has some known issues. We believe in transparency about the current state:

Major Issues (Help Wanted)

Whisper Model Crashes:

• Whisper models crash on certain system configurations (Windows and Linux)
• Does not affect all systems - issue is configuration-dependent
  • If you experience crashes and are a developer, please help to fix and provide debug logs!

Wayland Support (Linux):

• Limited support for Wayland display server
• Requires wtype or dotool for text input to work correctly (see Linux Notes below for installation)

Linux Notes

Text Input Tools:

For reliable text input on Linux, install the appropriate tool for your display server:

• X11: Install xdotool for both direct typing and clipboard paste shortcuts
• Wayland: Install wtype (preferred) or dotool for text input to work correctly
• dotool setup: Requires adding your user to the input group: sudo usermod -aG input $USER (then log out and back in)

Without these tools, Handy falls back to enigo which may have limited compatibility, especially on Wayland.

Other Notes:

• Runtime library dependency (libgtk-layer-shell.so.0):

  • Handy links gtk-layer-shell on Linux. If startup fails with error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-layer-shell.so.0, install the runtime package for your distro:

    Distro	Package to install	Example command
    Ubuntu/Debian	libgtk-layer-shell0	sudo apt install libgtk-layer-shell0
    Fedora/RHEL	gtk-layer-shell	sudo dnf install gtk-layer-shell
    Arch Linux	gtk-layer-shell	sudo pacman -S gtk-layer-shell

  • For building from source on Ubuntu/Debian, you may also need libgtk-layer-shell-dev.

• The recording overlay is disabled by default on Linux (Overlay Position: None) because certain compositors treat it as the active window. When the overlay is visible it can steal focus, which prevents Handy from pasting back into the application that triggered transcription. If you enable the overlay anyway, be aware that clipboard-based pasting might fail or end up in the wrong window.

• If you are having trouble with the app, running with the environment variable WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 may help

• If Handy fails to start reliably on Linux, see Troubleshooting → Linux Startup Crashes or Instability.

• Global keyboard shortcuts (Wayland): On Wayland, system-level shortcuts must be configured through your desktop environment or window manager. Use the CLI flags as the command for your custom shortcut.

  GNOME:

  1. Open Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Custom Shortcuts
  2. Click the + button to add a new shortcut
  3. Set the Name to Toggle Handy Transcription
  4. Set the Command to handy --toggle-transcription
  5. Click Set Shortcut and press your desired key combination (e.g., Super+O)

  KDE Plasma:

  1. Open System Settings > Shortcuts > Custom Shortcuts
  2. Click Edit > New > Global Shortcut > Command/URL
  3. Name it Toggle Handy Transcription
  4. In the Trigger tab, set your desired key combination
  5. In the Action tab, set the command to handy --toggle-transcription

  Sway / i3:

  Add to your config file (~/.config/sway/config or ~/.config/i3/config):

  bindsym $mod+o exec handy --toggle-transcription
  

  Hyprland:

  Add to your config file (~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf):

  bind = $mainMod, O, exec, handy --toggle-transcription
  

• You can also trigger Handy externally via Unix signals or the CLI flags, which lets Wayland window managers or other hotkey daemons keep ownership of keybindings:

  Action	Trigger
  Toggle transcription	pkill -USR2 -n handy or handy --toggle-transcription
  Toggle transcription with post-processing	handy --toggle-post-process

  Example Sway config:

  bindsym $mod+o exec pkill -USR2 -n handy
  bindsym $mod+p exec handy --toggle-post-process
  

  pkill here simply delivers the signal—it does not terminate the process.

  Behavior change: older releases also accepted SIGUSR1 for toggling transcription with post-processing. WebKitGTK — the webview engine embedded in Handy on Linux — uses SIGUSR1 internally to coordinate JavaScript garbage collection, so listening for it caused phantom recordings and interrupted dictations every few minutes (#1660). Handy no longer listens for SIGUSR1 on Linux; the post-processing toggle is still available via handy --toggle-post-process. Remove any pkill -USR1 bindings: the signal is now delivered straight to WebKit's internal handler and can crash the app.

Overlay & Pasting Issues (Linux):

• The recording overlay window can interfere with pasting transcribed text into target applications on Linux (X11)
• Solution: Open Settings > Advanced and set "Overlay Position" to "None" to disable the overlay
• Enable "Audio Feedback" (also in Advanced) if you still want audible confirmation of recording state
• Users who upgrade from older versions or import settings from other platforms may need to manually apply this change

Platform Support

• macOS (both Intel and Apple Silicon)
• x64 Windows
• x64 Linux

System Requirements/Recommendations

The following are recommendations for running Handy on your own machine. If you don't meet the system requirements, the performance of the application may be degraded. We are working on improving the performance across all kinds of computers and hardware.

For Whisper Models:

• macOS: M series Mac, Intel Mac
• Windows: Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA GPU
• Linux: Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA GPU
  • Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04

For Parakeet V3 Model:

• CPU-only operation - runs on a wide variety of hardware
• Minimum: Intel Skylake (6th gen) or equivalent AMD processors
• Performance: ~5x real-time speed on mid-range hardware (tested on i5)
• Automatic language detection - no manual language selection required

Roadmap & Active Development

We're actively working on several features and improvements. Contributions and feedback are welcome!

In Progress

Debug Logging:

• Adding debug logging to a file to help diagnose issues

macOS Keyboard Improvements:

• Support for Globe key as transcription trigger
• A rewrite of global shortcut handling for MacOS, and potentially other OS's too.

Opt-in Analytics:

• Collect anonymous usage data to help improve Handy
• Privacy-first approach with clear opt-in

Settings Refactoring:

• Cleanup and refactor settings system which is becoming bloated and messy
• Implement better abstractions for settings management

Tauri Commands Cleanup:

• Abstract and organize Tauri command patterns
• Investigate tauri-specta for improved type safety and organization

Verify Release Signatures

Handy release artifacts are signed with Tauri's updater signature format. The public key is stored in src-tauri/tauri.conf.json under plugins.updater.pubkey.

To verify a release manually, set ARTIFACT to the filename you downloaded, save the pubkey value from src-tauri/tauri.conf.json to handy.pub.b64, then decode the public key and matching .sig file from base64 and verify the artifact with minisign:

# Replace with the file you downloaded
ARTIFACT="Handy_0.8.1_amd64.AppImage"

python3 - "$ARTIFACT" <<'PY'
import base64, pathlib, sys

artifact = sys.argv[1]

pub = pathlib.Path("handy.pub.b64").read_text().strip()
pathlib.Path("handy.pub").write_bytes(base64.b64decode(pub))

sig = pathlib.Path(f"{artifact}.sig").read_text().strip()
pathlib.Path(f"{artifact}.minisig").write_bytes(base64.b64decode(sig))
PY

minisign -Vm "$ARTIFACT" \
  -p handy.pub \
  -x "$ARTIFACT.minisig"

On success, minisign prints:

Signature and comment signature verified

Do not use gpg for these .sig files.

Troubleshooting

Manual Model Installation (For Proxy Users or Network Restrictions)

If you're behind a proxy, firewall, or in a restricted network environment where Handy cannot download models automatically, you can manually download and install them. The URLs are publicly accessible from any browser.

Step 1: Find Your App Data Directory

1. Open Handy settings
2. Navigate to the About section
3. Copy the "App Data Directory" path shown there, or use the shortcuts:
   • macOS: Cmd+Shift+D to open debug menu
   • Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+D to open debug menu

The typical paths are:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/com.pais.handy/
• Windows: C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\com.pais.handy\
• Linux: ~/.config/com.pais.handy/

Step 2: Create Models Directory

Inside your app data directory, create a models folder if it doesn't already exist:

# macOS/Linux
mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.pais.handy/models

# Windows (PowerShell)
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "$env:APPDATA\com.pais.handy\models"

Step 3: Download Model Files

Download the models you want from below

Whisper Models (single .bin files):

• Small (487 MB): https://blob.handy.computer/ggml-small.bin
• Medium (492 MB): https://blob.handy.computer/whisper-medium-q4_1.bin
• Turbo (1600 MB): https://blob.handy.computer/ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin
• Large (1100 MB): https://blob.handy.computer/ggml-large-v3-q5_0.bin

Parakeet Unified EN 0.6B (single .gguf file, recommended):

• Q8_0 (731 MB): https://huggingface.co/handy-computer/parakeet-unified-en-0.6b-gguf/resolve/main/parakeet-unified-en-0.6b-Q8_0.gguf

Parakeet Models (compressed archives):

• V2 (473 MB): https://blob.handy.computer/parakeet-v2-int8.tar.gz
• V3 (478 MB): https://blob.handy.computer/parakeet-v3-int8.tar.gz

Step 4: Install Models

For Whisper Models (.bin files):

Simply place the .bin file directly into the models directory:

{app_data_dir}/models/
├── ggml-small.bin
├── whisper-medium-q4_1.bin
├── ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin
└── ggml-large-v3-q5_0.bin

For GGUF Models (.gguf files):

Place the .gguf file directly into the models directory, exactly like the Whisper .bin files above. Handy also picks up models already present in the shared Hugging Face cache (~/.cache/huggingface/hub), so a copy downloaded by another tool works without being moved.

For Parakeet Models (.tar.gz archives):

1. Extract the .tar.gz file
2. Place the extracted directory into the models folder
3. The directory must be named exactly as follows:
   • Parakeet V2: parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2-int8
   • Parakeet V3: parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3-int8

Final structure should look like:

{app_data_dir}/models/
├── parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2-int8/     (directory with model files inside)
│   ├── (model files)
│   └── (config files)
└── parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3-int8/     (directory with model files inside)
    ├── (model files)
    └── (config files)

Important Notes:

• For Parakeet models, the extracted directory name must match exactly as shown above
• Do not rename the .bin or .gguf files—use the exact filenames from the download URLs
• After placing the files, restart Handy to detect the new models

Step 5: Verify Installation

1. Restart Handy
2. Open Settings → Models
3. Your manually installed models should now appear as "Downloaded"
4. Select the model you want to use and test transcription

Custom Whisper Models

Handy can auto-discover custom Whisper GGML models placed in the models directory. This is useful for users who want to use fine-tuned or community models not included in the default model list.

How to use:

1. Obtain a Whisper model in GGML .bin format (e.g., from Hugging Face)
2. Place the .bin file in your models directory (see paths above)
3. Restart Handy to discover the new model
4. The model will appear in the "Custom Models" section of the Models settings page

Important:

• Community models are user-provided and may not receive troubleshooting assistance
• The model must be a valid Whisper GGML format (.bin file)
• Model name is derived from the filename (e.g., my-custom-model.bin → "My Custom Model")

Linux Startup Crashes or Instability

If Handy fails to start reliably on Linux — for example, it crashes shortly after launch, never shows its window, or reports a Wayland protocol error — try the steps below in order.

1. Install (or reinstall) gtk-layer-shell

Handy uses gtk-layer-shell for its recording overlay and links against it at runtime. A missing or broken installation is the most common cause of startup failures and can manifest as a crash or a hang well before any window is shown. Make sure the runtime package is installed for your distro:

If it is already installed and you still see startup problems, try reinstalling it (e.g. sudo pacman -S gtk-layer-shell again) in case the library files were corrupted by a partial upgrade.

2. Disable the GTK layer shell overlay (HANDY_NO_GTK_LAYER_SHELL)

If installing the library does not help, you can skip gtk-layer-shell initialization entirely as a workaround. On some compositors (notably KDE Plasma under Wayland) it has been reported to interact poorly with the recording overlay. With this variable set, the overlay falls back to a regular always-on-top window:

HANDY_NO_GTK_LAYER_SHELL=1 handy

3. Disable WebKit DMA-BUF renderer (WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER)

On some GPU/driver combinations the WebKitGTK DMA-BUF renderer can cause the window to fail to render or to crash. Try:

WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 handy

Making a workaround permanent

Once you've found a flag that helps, export it from your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshenv, …) or from the desktop autostart entry that launches Handy. If you launch Handy from a .desktop file, you can prefix the Exec= line, e.g.:

Exec=env HANDY_NO_GTK_LAYER_SHELL=1 handy

If a workaround helps you, please open an issue describing your distro, desktop environment, and session type — that information helps us narrow down the underlying bug.

Handy Starts or Stops Recording on Its Own (Linux)

Handy 0.9.4 and earlier listened for SIGUSR1 as a remote-control trigger. WebKitGTK — the webview engine embedded in Handy on Linux — uses that same signal internally to coordinate JavaScript garbage collection, so GC cycles were misread as hotkey presses: recordings started on their own, or real dictations were cut off mid-sentence (typically ~2 minutes in). See #1660.

Update to a newer release, and replace any pkill -USR1 -n handy keybindings with handy --toggle-post-process.

How to Contribute

1. Check existing issues at github.com/cjpais/Handy/issues
2. Fork the repository and create a feature branch
3. Test thoroughly on your target platform
4. Submit a pull request with clear description of changes
5. Join the discussion - reach out at [email protected]

The goal is to create both a useful tool and a foundation for others to build upon—a well-patterned, simple codebase that serves the community.

Sponsors

Related Projects

• Handy CLI - The original Python command-line version
• handy.computer - Project website with demos and documentation

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Handy is open-source software, but the Handy name, logo, icon, and brand assets are not open-source. Unofficial forks, rewrites, and redistributions must use their own branding and must not imply endorsement or affiliation.

Acknowledgments

• Whisper by OpenAI for the speech recognition model
• ggml and transcribe.cpp for amazing cross-platform speech-to-text inference/acceleration
• Silero for great lightweight VAD
• Tauri team for the excellent Rust-based app framework
• Community contributors helping make Handy better