Local Whisper MCP server

Local Whisper MCP

Private, local audio transcription for Claude. Local Whisper is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that transcribes audio files with Whisper on your own computer, so voice notes, meetings, and lectures never leave it. It works in Claude Desktop, in Claude Code, and in claude.ai chats that run on your computer.

Features

software. With ffmpeg on the PATH, it also reads M4A and FLAC.

• Transcribes WAV, Ogg Opus (WhatsApp and Telegram voice notes), and MP3 files with no extra

audio track and ignores the picture. Turn a recorded meeting or class into text or subtitles without extracting the audio first.

• Transcribes videos, such as MP4 and WebM files, when ffmpeg is installed: the server takes the

back to the CPU on its own. With the default model, large-v3-turbo-q8_0, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 transcribes a minute of audio in about one second.

• Runs on the GPU through Vulkan on Windows and Linux and through Metal on Apple Silicon, and falls

publishes, and frees its memory, including GPU memory, after 5 minutes without use.

• Downloads the model the first time it's needed, checks it against the hash that Hugging Face

and transcribes everything when background noise could hide quiet speech.

• Returns plain text, SubRip subtitles (SRT), or JSON segments with timestamps.
• Skips silence with voice activity detection on clean recordings, which keeps timestamps exact,

• Ships as one native executable per platform: there's no Python or .NET runtime to install.

Install

Download the files from the latest release. Each section below names the file it needs.

Claude Desktop

To add Local Whisper to Claude Desktop, install its extension:

local-whisper-mcp-VERSION-osx-arm64.mcpb for Apple Silicon Macs, or local-whisper-mcp-VERSION-osx-x64.mcpb for Intel Macs.

1. Download the extension for your system: local-whisper-mcp-VERSION-win-x64.mcpb for Windows,

language.

1. Open the file. Claude Desktop shows the extension's details.
2. Click Install.
3. Optional: In the extension's settings, choose the folders with your audio, the model, and the

Claude Code

To add Local Whisper to Claude Code, register the executable as an MCP server:

extract it to a folder that you keep.

1. Download the archive for your system, such as local-whisper-mcp-VERSION-linux-x64.tar.gz, and

1. Run the following command:

claude mcp add local-whisper -- PATH_TO_EXECUTABLE

Replace PATHTOEXECUTABLE with the full path of local-whisper-mcp (or local-whisper-mcp.exe on Windows) in that folder.

To change a setting, add it to the command as an environment variable, for example claude mcp add local-whisper -e LOCALWHISPERLANGUAGE=es -- PATHTOEXECUTABLE.

claude.ai chats on your computer

A claude.ai chat reaches the server through the Claude desktop app on your computer:

your computer under Run tasks on. The computer has to be on, with the Claude desktop app open.

1. Install the extension in Claude Desktop, as described in Claude Desktop.
2. When you start a chat in claude.ai, click + in the message box, choose Devices, and pick

folder, and the server deletes the copy after transcribing it.

1. Attach the audio and ask Claude to transcribe it. Claude copies the file into the server's inbox

The skill

The skill is optional, and recommended. The server works without it, but the skill tells Claude when to use the server, how to pass it a chat attachment, and what to tell you when the server isn't reachable. Without it, a claude.ai chat that doesn't run on your computer can't see the server and may try to transcribe the audio in the cloud instead of telling you how to connect it.

To add the skill to claude.ai, download local-whisper-skill.zip and upload it in Settings > Capabilities, under Skills.

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.