How to migrate from Willow Voice to VoiceGem (2026)
Willow Voice documents no export for a personal dictionary or history, so a switch means copying custom words out by hand before cancelling. Setting VoiceGem up takes about an hour including a local model download, and the free tiers on both sides let the two run in parallel first.
Cancelling Willow Voice Pro before renewal saves $144 a year for a single seat. (willowvoice.com/pricing, checked September 4, 2026)
Competitor pricing and features last verified September 4, 2026. Every claim links to its source.
| What you would move | Out of Willow Voice | Into VoiceGem |
|---|---|---|
| Transcripts and historysource | Unverified | Imported from a backup file |
| Personal dictionarysource | Unverified | Rebuilt by hand, then exported and version-controlled |
| Per-app behavioursource | Unverified | Modes with per-app and per-website triggers |
| Licence or subscriptionsource | Cancel to stop billing | $25-$159 once, 14-day refund |
Choose Willow Voice if…
- Willow Voice's free plan is unlimited on words, so downgrading rather than leaving costs nothing and keeps a working tool on the phone and any Windows machine VoiceGem will not run on.
- If your employer requires enforced zero data retention with SSO, Willow Voice sells it at the Business tier and VoiceGem has no contractual equivalent — that requirement ends the migration on its own.
- Willow Voice covers three operating systems, and VoiceGem covers macOS 14.4 or later, so this switch narrows your coverage rather than widening it.
What changes when the model stops editing your text
Willow Voice's tiers are built around model quality: Frontier Mini free, Frontier Pro paid, with editing applied to what you said. VoiceGem's default engine transcribes on the Mac and, in an editor, the Deterministic Pass converts spoken symbols with a fixed table instead of a model.
The visible effect after migrating is that dictated prose comes out closer to what you actually said, and dictated code comes out the same way every time. Whether the first is an improvement depends on your writing.
The second is not a matter of taste. Identical input producing identical output is the property the Deterministic Pass exists to provide, and it is checkable in your first five minutes.
The migration itself, step by step
First, open Willow Voice and copy out every custom word and personalization you rely on, because no export is documented. Second, downgrade rather than delete if you want to keep the unlimited free plan on other devices. Third, install VoiceGem, grant accessibility permission and download a local model. Fourth, retype your word list. Fifth, enable Developer Mode for your editor.
Allow an hour. Because Willow Voice's free plan survives cancellation, there is no reason to burn the account.
What Willow Voice lets you take with you
Nothing automatically. Willow Voice's public pages document no export for a dictionary, personalization or history, so anything you want on the other side is copied by hand while you still have access.
That is the norm rather than the exception in this category — Wispr Flow, Typeless, Aqua Voice and Monologue are all in the same position — and it is why every migration page on this site treats the word list as the real work.
Why downgrading beats cancelling
Willow Voice's free plan is unlimited on words using its smaller Frontier Mini model, with 20 Scribe uses a week. Downgrading to it keeps dictation available on a phone and on any Windows machine, which VoiceGem does not serve.
VoiceGem then covers the Mac, where the Deterministic Pass and on-device transcription matter most. Two free tiers plus one $25 licence is a cheaper arrangement than either product's paid plan alone.
When to stop and stay with Willow Voice
Stop if the requirement is contractual: enforced zero data retention, SSO and compliance certifications are Business-tier features at Willow Voice and are not something VoiceGem can offer at any price.
Stop also if most of your dictation happens away from a Mac. VoiceGem has no iPhone app and no Windows build, and a migration that removes dictation from half your devices is a downgrade whatever the code mode does.
What people ask before switching
“Moving my dictionary and settings across will eat a weekend.”
VoiceGem imports and exports its own settings, so the VoiceGem side is minutes. The real question is whether your current app exports at all, and for most of this category the documented answer is no — which means the honest estimate is retyping your word list once.
The import and export service →“My employer's code cannot go to a third-party server, so cloud dictation is out.”
VoiceGem's default engine runs on the Mac and the Deterministic Pass never leaves it. Cloud AI providers are opt-in and use your own key, held in the macOS Keychain. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you switch it on and supply the key yourself.
Which models run locally →“When the connection is poor it stalls, spirals, or loses what I dictated.”
A hosted dictation service has a round trip to fail. VoiceGem's default engine runs on the Mac and the Deterministic Pass is a pure function, so there is no request to time out and no queue to spiral — dictation behaves the same on hotel wifi as at a desk.
Which models run on the device →Also comparing: where Willow Voice wins and where it does not, what Willow Voice actually costs, or every Willow Voice alternative worth the switch.
Common questions
No export path is documented on Willow Voice's public pages for a dictionary, personalization or history. Copy your custom words manually before downgrading or cancelling.
Downgrade. Willow Voice's free plan is unlimited on words using the smaller Frontier Mini model, so keeping the account costs nothing and preserves dictation on devices VoiceGem does not support.
About an hour. Installation and accessibility permission take ten minutes, downloading a local model a few more, and retyping the word list accounts for the rest.
No. Willow Voice's Scribe feature has no VoiceGem counterpart. VoiceGem's paid licence removes the daily time cap and adds nothing that behaves like Scribe.
Probably. Willow Voice applies editing on top of transcription, and VoiceGem's default path does not. Dictated prose arrives closer to what you said, which some people prefer and some do not.
Cancelling stops the next renewal rather than refunding the current term, so the switch is cheapest near the end of a paid period. Willow Voice Pro on annual billing is $144 a year for one seat.
15 minutes of audio a day, then $25 once for one Mac.
VoiceGem is released under GPL-3.0, a derivative of VoiceInk by Prakash Joshi Pax.