Voice profiles (Mac)

This chapter is for Mac users. Enabling dictation filtering needs the Mac app, and Transcription, which uses speaker labels, runs only on a Mac.

A voice profile gives Aria a name for a speaker. An owner profile can also help it select your speech during dictation. A guest supplies labels for transcripts.

This is a recognition aid, not authentication. Filtering can allow other voices through when it cannot make a confident match.

Enroll

Complete setup, accept the speaker-model download, and keep the background service running. Allow microphone access when asked.

In the Mac app, open Settings → Recognition and click Set Up… under Voice. Enter your name, click Start, and read each sentence aloud. Pause after each one; the pause tells Aria the sentence is done. A voice added while there is no owner becomes the owner. Other voices are guests; add one with Add Voice….

In the terminal, to create an owner profile named alex:

aria speaker enroll alex \
  --role owner

Follow the prompts and provide clear recordings from one speaker. Enrollment asks for five utterances by default and checks that they agree before saving. After it succeeds, run:

aria speaker list

It shows each profile’s name and role.

Use your profile

Enrollment does not turn filtering on. In the Mac app, enable Settings → Recognition → Only type my voice. It is off by default. The CLI cannot change it, but CLI dictation follows it.

Aria rejects speech judged to be another voice. When there is too little usable audio to identify the speaker, it keeps the words without claiming an owner match. Without an enrolled owner, dictation fails instead of typing every voice.

Filtering is not a privacy guard. Short replies from other people can pass, and recognition can still miss words. Recordings kept for retry still hold every voice.

See who is speaking

While you dictate, the waves in the status pill show whether Aria is typing the voice it hears. They brighten for a voice it types and fade for one it excludes. Until Aria matches a voice, including short speech it keeps without an identity match, the waves stay at their usual red. A lost connection returns them to red until fresh voice information arrives.

Other speakers

To add a guest:

aria speaker enroll partner \
  --role guest

To make a guest the owner, choose Make Owner from its menu in Settings → Recognition, or run:

aria speaker owner partner

The previous owner becomes a guest.

Transcription names a voice with a profile once it is sure who is speaking. Other voices get numbers, such as Speaker 1. Labels can change as more audio arrives, so the saved transcript may differ from what the terminal printed first.

Replace or remove

In the Mac app, each voice in Settings → Recognition has a menu with Set Up Again… and Remove….

In the terminal, to replace alex with new recordings:

aria speaker enroll alex \
  --replace

A replaced profile keeps its role.

To remove a profile, use its name from the list:

aria speaker remove partner

Profiles are stored locally and contain a numeric representation of the voice. If enrollment fails, check the speaker-model path with aria doctor and use Troubleshooting.