Model Downloads and Management
How the speech models are downloaded, and how to free the memory and disk they use.
EnviousWispr keeps its speech models on your own Mac rather than on a server, which is what lets your audio stay on the device. The trade for that is a download the first time and some disk space to manage afterwards.
The two downloads
Parakeet. This engine is downloaded for you during setup, and you watch the progress as it goes. It is about 480 MB.
WhisperKit. This engine is not downloaded for you. If you switch to it, go to Settings > Transcription and click Download WhisperKit Model. It is about 1.5 GB.
Each download is checked before it is used, so a broken or half-finished file is never loaded.
If a download fails
EnviousWispr retries some temporary network problems by itself. Anything else stops and gives you a button to try again.
Freeing up memory
The model stays in your Mac’s memory between dictations so there is nothing to load next time. If you would rather have the memory back, go to Settings > Transcription and change Unload model after.
It arrives set to Never, so the model stays loaded. The other choices unload it after 2, 5, 10, 15 or 60 minutes of not being used, or straight after every recording. Each one costs you a short wait the next time you dictate.
Freeing up disk space
You can remove local models you no longer need to recover storage, and you can download them again later.
Remove a WhisperKit model. Open Transcription and use Remove Model.
Remove EG-1. EG-1 is the polish model EnviousWispr built. Open AI Polish and use the remove button there. The button appears once EG-1 is installed and ready. If a newer EG-1 is waiting to install, that row offers the upgrade instead, and the remove button comes back once the upgrade finishes.
Remove Ollama models. Local Ollama models are removed from that same AI Polish page. Hosted Ollama models cannot be removed because there is nothing on your Mac to remove.
The other speed setting
How quickly a dictation starts is a different setting, under Microphone. See First Word Gets Cut Off.