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Downloading local models

Local engines transcribe on your device — audio never leaves the machine. Download them once under Settings → AI & Models → Local engines, then point any mode at Local under Hear your voice. Required for offline use and for sensitive apps fail-closed protection.

Available engines​

EngineTechnologyNotes
SenseVoice SmallSherpa-ONNXDefault local choice; fast multilingual
Whisper Basewhisper.cppCompact Whisper; sidecar auto-download is Windows-only
Parakeet TDT 0.6BSherpa-ONNX (NeMo transducer)High-accuracy English; CC-BY-4.0 (NVIDIA NeMo) — not yet fully verified in Kalam
Moonshine SmallSherpa-ONNXFastest local English for short commands — not yet fully verified in Kalam

On platforms where an engine is unavailable, the UI shows that it cannot run there — use SenseVoice Small or a cloud provider instead.

Licenses​

  • SenseVoice and Moonshine packs are distributed via k2-fsa/sherpa-onnx ASR model releases.
  • Parakeet TDT 0.6B is derived from NVIDIA NeMo and is licensed CC-BY-4.0. By downloading it in Kalam you accept that attribution requirement.

Download and manage​

  1. Open Settings → AI & Models → Local engines.
  2. Find the engine you want in the installed-engines list.
  3. Click Download. Wait for model (and sidecar, when applicable) progress to finish.
  4. When status is Stopped, click Start so the engine is ready (or let dictation start it when needed).
  5. Optionally Stop, Restart, or Delete / uninstall when you no longer need it.

Hardware warnings appear if your machine cannot run a given engine. Free disk space for the model size shown in the list (Parakeet is ~460 MB; Moonshine ~100 MB).

Point a mode at Local​

  1. Open Dictation → edit the mode (or Base).
  2. Under Hear your voice, choose Local and pick SenseVoice Small, Whisper Base, Parakeet, or Moonshine.
  3. Dictate once offline (or with the network off) to confirm.

Modes that inherit the default profile get that profile's local choice. Background: Speech-to-text and Choosing a speech mode.

Sensitive apps need a local engine

If a password manager (or any app on your sensitive list) is focused and no local engine is installed, dictation errors instead of falling back to the cloud. Install at least one engine before relying on that protection.

Whisper Base on Windows

Whisper Base's companion sidecar downloads automatically on Windows. Elsewhere, prefer SenseVoice Small if Whisper's engine is marked unavailable.