Adding Transcription Languages
Flare uses Apple's built-in speech recognition engine (the same technology behind Siri and Dictation) to generate real-time transcriptions of your recordings. This means transcription runs entirely on your Mac — fast, private, and works offline.
How it works
When you enable Auto-transcription in Settings > Recording, Flare listens to your microphone audio during recording and generates word-by-word subtitles automatically. These subtitles appear on your video as soon as the recording is finished.
The quality and availability of transcription depends on which speech recognition models are installed on your Mac.
Default language
Flare defaults to English (US) which is pre-installed on every Mac. You can change the active transcription language in Settings > Languages.
Adding more languages
Since Flare uses Apple's speech engine, additional language models are managed through macOS System Settings:
- Open System Settings on your Mac
- Go to Apple Intelligence & Siri (or Siri & Spotlight on older macOS versions)
- Click Language or Dictation Languages
- Download the languages you need
Each language model is roughly 40–80 MB. Once downloaded, it will appear as an on-device language in Flare's Languages settings.
On-device vs. cloud
In Flare's Languages settings, you'll see two categories:
- On-device — These languages have a downloaded model on your Mac. Transcription is fast, private, and works without internet.
- Cloud — These languages are supported but don't have a local model. Transcription requires an internet connection and may be slower.
We recommend using on-device languages whenever possible for the best experience.
Supported languages
Apple supports over 60 languages for speech recognition, including:
- English (US, UK, Australia, Canada, and more)
- Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese
- Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese), Japanese, Korean
- Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch
- Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Hindi, Thai
- And many more
The full list is visible in Flare's Settings > Languages tab.