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OmniVoice Studio — Install on macOS

This page is self-contained: follow it top to bottom and you'll end up with a working OmniVoice Studio install on macOS (Apple Silicon).

Important

Intel Macs are not supported. The app UI installs and launches, but the local Python backend cannot run: PyTorch stopped shipping Intel-Mac (macOS x86_64) wheels after 2.2.x, and OmniVoice's dependencies require a newer torch — so the first-run dependency install can never succeed, from the DMG or from source (#889). The app detects this at first launch and tells you directly instead of failing with a raw installer error. Your options on an Intel Mac: point the UI at a remote backend running on another machine (Settings → Sharing → Remote backend), or run OmniVoice on an Apple Silicon Mac, Windows, or Linux.

Prerequisites

Using the DMG

  • macOS 12 (Monterey) or newer — Apple Silicon (Intel: UI only, see the note above).
  • ~10 GB free disk for the app, its Python environment, and model weights.

That's it — GPU acceleration (Apple MPS) is automatic on Apple Silicon, and Python, FFmpeg, and the model weights are bundled or bootstrapped by the app itself on first launch. No toolchain needed.

Building from source

Everything above, plus the toolchain:

  • Xcode Command Line Tools — xcode-select --install (includes git and the C toolchain; curl ships with macOS).
  • Python 3.11+ — brew install python@3.11 (or use pyenv / the system Python if you already have ≥3.11).
  • Bun — curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash.
  • Rust / Cargo — curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh or brew install rust. If you use rustup, reopen the terminal or source "$HOME/.cargo/env" before running bun run desktop-prod.

FFmpeg/FFprobe and yt-dlp are not prerequisites on any install path: the app resolves them itself (a static build ships with the Python environment; if nothing resolves, the app downloads its own checksummed build on first run). Power users can inspect or override the binaries in Settings → Audio tools — including pointing at a Homebrew copy.

Optional but recommended:

Install (from source)

git clone https://github.com/debpalash/OmniVoice-Studio.git
cd OmniVoice-Studio
bun install
bun run desktop-prod

The first launch builds the Tauri shell, creates the Python venv via uv, syncs deps, and downloads model weights (~2.4 GB). The splash screen shows live progress for every step.

Install (pre-built .app)

Download the latest DMG from the Releases page, double-click to mount, drag OmniVoice Studio.app into /Applications.

Pick the DMG that matches your Mac (check Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip/Processor):

Mac DMG to download
Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4…) OmniVoice.Studio_<version>_aarch64.dmg
Intel OmniVoice.Studio_<version>_x64.dmg — UI only: the local backend cannot run on Intel (#889)

The architectures are not interchangeable: an Intel Mac cannot run the aarch64 build (Rosetta 2 only translates the other direction — it lets Apple Silicon run Intel apps, never the reverse). And note the Intel caveat above: the x64 DMG installs and launches, but is only useful together with a remote backend — the local Python backend cannot install on Intel because PyTorch no longer ships Intel-Mac wheels. Installing from source does not help; the dependency resolution fails the same way.

If the first launch is blocked by macOS Gatekeeper ("OmniVoice Studio cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified"), see the next section — it opens with one right-click, no Terminal.

App is "damaged" / can't be opened (Gatekeeper)

On first launch you'll see "OmniVoice Studio cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified" — macOS Gatekeeper blocking an app it can't trace to a paid Apple Developer account (issues #134, #72).

Why: the build is ad-hoc code-signed (a valid signature, free) but not yet notarised by Apple, so macOS quarantines any copy downloaded from the internet and asks you to confirm the first launch. This is expected for open-source builds — releases are notarised (warning-free) only once the project's Apple Developer ID pipeline is funded (see "For maintainers" below). Confirming is safe because you downloaded from the official repo / Releases page; for belt-and-braces, verify the SHA-256 against the *.dmg.sha256 checksum on the release page first.

Fix — GUI, no Terminal (do this): in Finder, right-click (or Control-click) OmniVoice Studio.app → Open → click Open again in the dialog. (On macOS 15 Sequoia: double-click once, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click "Open Anyway".) This is a one-time confirmation per install; afterwards it launches by double-click.

If you instead see the harsher "app is damaged and can't be opened. Move to Trash" with no Open option, the download was corrupted or it's a pre-signing build — re-download the latest release, or use the Terminal fallback below.

Fix — Terminal: after dragging the app into /Applications, run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/OmniVoice Studio.app"

(Adjust the path if you put the app somewhere other than /Applications.)

That clears the quarantine attribute so Gatekeeper stops blocking the launch — a one-time fix per install.

For maintainers — enabling notarised builds

The release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) is already wired to code-sign + notarise the macOS bundle; it activates automatically once these repository secrets are set (it skips signing — producing today's unsigned build — when they're absent):

Secret What
APPLE_CERTIFICATE Developer ID Application cert, exported as a base64-encoded .p12
APPLE_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD password for that .p12
APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY e.g. Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)
APPLE_ID Apple ID email used for notarisation
APPLE_PASSWORD an app-specific password for that Apple ID
APPLE_TEAM_ID your 10-char Apple Developer Team ID

Requires a paid Apple Developer account ($99/yr). Once set, downloaded DMGs open without the quarantine step.

Apple Silicon vs Intel

  • Apple Silicon (M-series): OmniVoice automatically picks the mlx-whisper and mlx-audio backends where available — these use the Apple Neural Engine and Metal Performance Shaders for ~2× the throughput of the CPU path. Installing the Parakeet TDT v3 (MLX) model from Settings → Models additionally makes dictation/capture prefer the parakeet-mlx engine (25 European languages, word timestamps, ~2 GB unified memory) — it is never downloaded without that explicit install, and it is only auto-preferred when your system language is one of its 25 covered languages (other languages — CJK, Arabic, … — keep the multilingual Whisper engine so dictation coverage never regresses; pin ASR_MODEL_PARAKEET_MLX to force it).
  • Intel Macs: the local backend is unsupported — PyTorch no longer ships Intel-Mac wheels, so the Python environment can never install (#889). The UI works only when pointed at a remote backend (Settings → Sharing → Remote backend).

The picker in Settings → Engines shows which backend is active.

Hugging Face token (optional but recommended)

The default install works without a token, but diarization (the pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1 model) is gated and the larger voice-design engines also download faster with a token attached.

  • Open Settings → API Keys in the app.
  • Or set the env var export HF_TOKEN=hf_… in ~/.zshrc.

Full details: docs/setup/huggingface-token.md.

Troubleshooting

Hit a wall? See docs/install/troubleshooting.md.

The in-app error UI (the React error boundary that fires on backend errors) includes an "Open docs for this error" button — that button deeplinks back into this docs tree at the right section for the error class.