Drag, grant, done.
The first-launch wizard walks through every step. This page mirrors it so you can read ahead.
1. Drag Murmur to /Applications
Open the .pkg, follow the installer, then launch Murmur from /Applications or Spotlight. The wizard opens automatically on first run.
2. Input Monitoring
So Murmur can see Right ⌘ system-wide. Without this, the hotkey only works when Murmur is the active app.
Approve in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring.
3. Accessibility
So Murmur can paste the transcript into whichever text field you're focused on. macOS won't let an app toggle this on its own — you'll need to add Murmur manually.
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, click the +, choose Murmur, and toggle it on.
4. Microphone
macOS prompts the first time you press Right ⌘. Approve once and you're set.
Audio is buffered in memory while you hold the hotkey and discarded once Whisper transcribes it. Nothing is written to disk.
5. Optional: screen context (for polish mode)
Off by default. Enable it if you want polish mode to see the focused window when generating a reply — Murmur captures one screenshot on each polish-mode trigger and sends it to Anthropic with the transcript.
Turning this on adds two prompts: Screen Recording permission, and an Anthropic API key. Skip it and quick-mode dictation still works fully.
Get a key at console.anthropic.com. Murmur stores it locally in ~/.config/voice-reply/config.json (readable only by your user account) and sends it nowhere except api.anthropic.com.
6. Pick a transcription model
Whisper runs entirely on-device via Apple's MLX framework. Three accuracy tiers, downloaded on first use and cached at ~/Library/Application Support/Murmur/models:
- Fast — 140 MB. Tiny model. Good enough for short, clear speech.
- Balanced — 470 MB. The default. Handles accents, filler words, and noisy rooms.
- Best — 1.5 GB. Highest accuracy, longest latency. Worth it for long-form dictation.
Switch any time from the menu-bar popover. Delete unused models from the picker when you're done.
You're done
Hold Right ⌘ for fast on-device dictation. Double-tap, then hold, for a Claude-polished reply. Esc mid-recording cancels.
Need to revisit this later? Click the menu-bar icon and choose Run Setup Again.