Using Blabb offline

Dictation never needs the internet, and a verified subscription keeps working for thirty days without reaching the licence server.

UPDATED 2026-07-28

Dictation itself does not touch the network at all. The speech model and the cleanup model are both on your PC, so what you say never leaves the machine and never waits on a connection.

The only thing that needs the internet is checking that your subscription is still current — and even that has a long fuse.

The thirty-day window#

A subscription that Blabb has verified keeps working for thirty days without reaching the licence server.

That is deliberately generous, because the situations where a licence server is unreachable are almost never fraud. They are a flight. A hotel network that wants a login page. A locked-down corporate machine or a VDI session where outbound traffic is filtered. None of those should stop you dictating.

Inside the window, Blabb behaves exactly as it always does. The Account page shows a notice telling you how many days are left, and it says so plainly once the window has run out.

Important

The window belongs to a subscription that was active the last time Blabb checked. It is not thirty free days. If Blabb has never successfully verified a subscription on this PC, there is nothing to extend, and dictation needs a connection to get started.

What the licence check sends#

Three things: your licence key, Blabb's own organisation id, and the activation id that identifies this PC's slot on your licence. When you first activate, it also sends a label so you can tell your devices apart in your Polar account — that label contains your PC's name as Windows knows it.

No audio. No transcript. Nothing you have dictated, and no record of what you dictated it into. The check asks one question — is this key still good — and gets one answer.

How often it runs#

Once when Blabb starts. After a definitive answer it waits up to a day before checking again. If a check produced no answer — you were offline, or the network was still coming up — it tries again every five minutes instead, so getting back on a connection resolves things quickly rather than costing you a day.

It also runs immediately when you press Refresh on the Account page, or when you activate or remove a licence key. Apart from that, the only other thing Blabb sends is a crash report, and only if you have turned crash reports on — they are off unless you ask for them.

While a check is unresolved, the status badge on the Account page reads Unknown. That is what offline looks like; it does not mean anything is wrong with your subscription.

Getting ready to be offline#

There is nothing to download and no offline mode to switch on. Open Blabb while you still have a connection and let it start normally — the check happens on startup, and the thirty days run from there.

If you want to be certain before a long trip, press Refresh on the Account page while you are still connected. A successful check resets the thirty days from that moment, and the badge tells you where you stand before you leave.

When the window runs out#

Dictation drops to the free tier of 2,000 words a day — it does not stop. Nothing is lost: your history, settings and saved words are untouched. Get back on a network, and the next check restores full dictation.