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Download and install Vowen on macOS or Windows.

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Supported Platforms

Vowen does not currently support Linux. There is no ARM64 Windows build; on an ARM64 Windows machine the x64 build runs under emulation.

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System Requirements

During setup Vowen offers two models: Parakeet V2 (English only, recommended) and Parakeet V3 (25 European languages). You must download one of them to finish setup. Afterwards you can download more local models, or switch to a cloud engine, from Speech models in the sidebar.

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Download

Download the latest version from vowen.ai. Windows ships two builds:
The portable build does not register itself with Windows, so it does not appear in Installed Apps and does not create shortcuts. It still writes its data to %APPDATA%\vowen\.

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macOS Installation

1

Open the DMG

Double-click the downloaded .dmg file to mount it.
2

Drag to Applications

Drag the Vowen icon to your Applications folder.
3

Launch

Open Vowen from Applications. macOS may show a standard first-launch warning since the app was downloaded from the internet.
4

Complete Onboarding

The setup flow has 11 steps. Two of them are gates: you cannot continue past permissions until Microphone and Accessibility are granted, and you cannot continue past the model step until a model has finished downloading. See the Quickstart for the full walkthrough.

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Windows Installation

1

Run the Installer

Double-click the downloaded .exe file. If you downloaded the portable build instead, run it. There is nothing to install.
2

Handle Security Warning

If Windows Defender shows “Windows protected your PC”, click More info then Run anyway. This appears because the app is not yet code-signed with an EV certificate.
The app is safe to install. To bypass this warning permanently, we would need an Extended Validation (EV) code-signing certificate, which Microsoft requires for SmartScreen reputation. EV certs cost several hundred dollars per year and require a hardware token, which is a meaningful expense for a two-person team. We are working toward getting one for future releases.
3

Complete Installation

Follow the installer prompts. Vowen will be installed and shortcuts created.
4

Launch and Onboard

Open Vowen and complete the setup wizard.
Vowen is safe to install. Some antivirus software (QuickHeal, Kaspersky) may flag it as suspicious because the app is not yet code-signed. If you see a warning, add Vowen to your antivirus whitelist.

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What Gets Installed

  • The Vowen application
  • Helper binaries for transcription and audio capture
  • The Silero Voice Activity Detection (VAD) model
Vowen downloads your transcription model during onboarding rather than bundling it in the installer. That keeps the download small and lets you pick the model that fits your hardware.

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After Installation

Vowen checks for updates every 6 hours and shows a banner in the main window when a new version is available. Dismissing the banner hides it for 24 hours. You can force a check any time with Settings > General > Check for Updates. See Updates for details on how releases are shipped and how to give us feedback.

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Uninstalling

  1. Quit Vowen completely (right-click menu bar icon > Quit Vowen)
  2. Drag Vowen from Applications to Trash
  3. To remove all data: delete ~/Library/Application Support/vowen/
Audio recordings are stored outside that directory, in ~/Documents/Vowen Recordings, and are not removed by uninstalling. See Privacy and data for the full list of what Vowen writes to disk.
If you installed the vowen command line tool from Settings > Developer, uninstall it from that same section before removing the app.