Holdkey

Accurate voice input for AI on Windows.

Hold Right Ctrl, speak naturally, and let go. Smart recognition handles names and longer prompts in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, or any Windows text box. If the service fails, Holdkey keeps the Local result.

Download for WindowsSee it work ↓

Free Local mode · no account or card · Windows 10/11 · Smart accuracy in Founder Pro

You, holding Right Ctrl

…

Claude Code, a moment later
>
HoldkeyThe overlay you actually see. Latency shown is a real measurement on a desktop CPU, same mic as the benchmark.
782 real dictations studied
The product direction comes from daily Windows use, not a staged microphone demo.
94% went into Claude
Holdkey is being built first for people who think out loud with AI.
98% used Clean
The useful product is a faithful, ready-to-send thought—not a raw transcript.
How it goes

Three things. Then it is typed.

1
Put your cursor in any text box
2
Hold Right Ctrl and talk
3
Let go, the text is there
Works in

One voice shortcut for every AI tool

Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, the terminal, email, docs, and the small text boxes Windows dictation tools often miss.

  • Claude Code
  • Cursor
  • ChatGPT · Codex
  • VS Code
  • Windows Terminal
  • Chrome
  • Edge
  • Slack
  • Teams
  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • Notion
Your choice

Smart accuracy or fully local.

Smart sends only the recording you make while holding the key to Holdkey’s managed recognizer, then discards it. Local keeps recognition and cleanup on your PC. In both modes, history stays on your disk and screenshots are never taken.

Smart for the words that have to be right
Higher-accuracy recognition for natural speech, names and longer AI prompts. If the service or network fails, Holdkey uses the Local result instead of losing the utterance.
Local when the audio should stay on the PC
Works offline after setup and remains available even when Smart is enabled.
No silent rewriting
Clean removes fillers and resolved false starts. A quick tap swaps the inserted text back to the verbatim transcript.
Clean mode

Faster than typing, ready to send

You talk at 150 words a minute; most developers type at 55. Clean mode makes the fast version usable: fillers and false starts gone, meaning untouched, and it lands as fast as Raw because it cleans while you talk. A tap of the key swaps in the verbatim version.

Dictionary

Knows your vocabulary

Add product names, libraries and coworkers once. Holdkey biases recognition itself, so Supabase stops coming out as “super base”.

Time machine

How many hours would you get back?

Developers type at 50 to 70 words a minute. Everyone talks at about 150. Move the sliders.

Assumes you speak at 150 words a minute (the average conversational rate), type at the developer average unless you move the slider, about 0.5 s of overhead per dictation, and 252 working days. Talking is not free; this is the difference, not the whole.

3.3 days
back in 12 months
19 minutes a day. 415,800 words you would say instead of type.
typing, 5.3 days total talking, 47 h total

Full calculator and how it is worked out →

The app

One window, and you rarely need it.

Holdkey lives in the tray. Open it for today’s numbers, your history, your vocabulary and the settings.

HoldkeyFeedback–×
Hold Right Ctrl, talk, let go.
Ready to send: fillers and false starts gone, meaning untouched. Same speed.
Typing skipped today
41 min
3.7 h all time
Words today
2,310
19 dictations
Typical speed
106 ms
key up to text
Kept without edits
95%
this week
RecentAll 186

  • Refactor the auth middleware to use the Supabase session instead of the cookie hack. Keep the redirect logic the same and add a unit test for the token refresh path.

    2 min ago·Claude Code·Clean·98 ms

  • Hi Sam, about Friday: the demo moves to 2 pm, same room. Slides by Thursday night. Thanks, Vino

    14 min ago·Gmail·Clean·112 ms

  • can you check why the sidebar collapses on tablet widths, I think it's the flex-basis on the nav

    1 h ago·Cursor·Raw·104 ms
Pricing

Start local. Pay for dependable daily use.

Free
$0
 
  • Local recognition, unlimited
  • Clean mode, 2,000 words a week
  • No account or card
Founder Pro
$10/month
first 100 customers keep this price
  • Smart recognition with automatic Local fallback
  • Unlimited Clean and Your voice modes
  • Personal dictionary and per-app behavior
  • Use on up to three Windows PCs
  • Direct line to the founder
Get Founder Pro
Get Holdkey

One key between a thought and a prompt.

Download for WindowsAbout 10 MB; models download on first run (3 GB).

Unsigned alpha, so Windows shows a SmartScreen screen the first time. What to click.

Mac?
Mac is next. Leave your email and you get one message when it lands.
Questions

What people ask before installing

Do I need a GPU?

No. Recognition runs on the CPU in real time. Clean mode uses a small local model that is faster on a GPU but works on a CPU too.

Which languages?

English by default, because the English-only recognizer is the most accurate. Switch to the multilingual recognizer in Settings for 25 European languages (German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and more), detected as you speak.

Does it work in the terminal?

Yes. Windows Terminal, PowerShell and Claude Code are first-class targets, not an afterthought.

Is anything sent to the cloud?

Only if you turn on Smart recognition. Smart sends the recording made while you hold the key to Holdkey's managed transcription service, then discards it; Local keeps audio and recognition on your PC. Local also takes over automatically if Smart is unavailable. Your history stays on your disk in either mode.

Does Clean mode change what I said?

It keeps what you meant and drops what slows a reader down: fillers, restarts, the sentence you took back. Numbers, negations and questions are checked before anything is inserted; if the cleanup would change them, you get your exact words instead. A tap of the key swaps in the verbatim version.

Can it write the way I write?

Yes. Next to Raw and Clean there is a third mode, Your voice. After Clean, a second pass on your PC restates the text in your own voice: your sentence length, punctuation habits, contractions, how direct you are. It learns from the dictations you keep without editing, and you can paste a few paragraphs you wrote to start today. Facts, numbers and negations never change, and if the pass cannot keep them it falls back to the plain cleaned text.

What does it cost?

Local recognition is free, no account or card. Clean mode includes 2,000 words a week. Founder Pro is $10 a month for Smart recognition and unlimited paid features; the first 100 paying customers keep that price.

Does it start with Windows?

Yes, by default. It lives in the tray; you can turn that off in Settings.

Why is the installer unsigned?

It is an alpha. Windows SmartScreen shows “Windows protected your PC” for any new installer without a certificate: click More info, then Run anyway. Signing comes with the first sales.

Mac?

Next. Leave your email below and you get one message when it lands.