whisper-telegram

macOS menu bar app that records audio with a global hotkey, transcribes it locally using MLX Whisper, and sends the text to a Telegram bot.

Requirements

• macOS 14+
• Swift 5.10+
• Python 3 with mlx-whisper installed (pip install mlx-whisper)
• A Telegram bot (via BotFather)
• Telegram desktop app

Setup

1. Clone and build:

   git clone https://github.com/<you>/whisper-telegram.git
   cd whisper-telegram
   swift build -c release
   

2. Create the config:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/whisper-telegram
   cp config.template.json ~/.config/whisper-telegram/config.json
   

3. Edit ~/.config/whisper-telegram/config.json:

   • telegramBotUsername — your bot's username (without @)
   • whisperModel — Hugging Face model ID (default works well on Apple Silicon)
   • language — ISO 639-1 language code
   • python3Path — path to python3 with mlx-whisper available

4. Run:

   .build/release/WhisperTelegram
   

5. Grant microphone and accessibility (System Events) permissions when prompted.

Usage

Press Control+T to start recording. Press Control+T again to stop — the audio is transcribed and sent to your Telegram bot chat automatically.

The menu bar icon shows the current state: mic (idle), red mic (recording), arrow (transcribing).