Ghost Pepper, an open‑source macOS app, lets users record voice with a hold‑to‑talk Control key and instantly paste cleaned‑up text. Built for Apple Silicon, it runs WhisperKit and a Qwen 2.5 LLM entirely locally, so no audio ever leaves the machine. The developer, Matthartman, released it under an MIT license to invite community feedback.

The app ships as a DMG for macOS 14 and newer, auto‑downloading a 466 MB WhisperKit small.en model and a 3 GB Qwen 2.5 cleanup model on first launch. Users toggle settings in a menu‑bar icon, choose microphones, and enable launch‑at‑login. Debug logs stay in memory, never written to disk, preserving privacy for every user who values data security and efficiency in daily tasks.

Because all processing happens locally, Ghost Pepper bypasses costly cloud APIs that typically charge $80 M for similar capabilities. IT administrators on managed devices can pre‑approve the required Accessibility permission via MDM profiles, making it suitable for enterprise use. The project invites pull requests and feature ideas, positioning itself as a lightweight, privacy‑first alternative for developers and writers today and tomorrow.