# Add your API key. Dimmy Help.

> Add your API key. Step-by-step help for Dimmy, the native voice dictation app for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Source: https://dimmy.app/help/api-keys/

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Providers & Models

# Add your API key

Open Settings → Providers & keys, find the provider card, paste the key. It is encrypted on your machine. You can update keys at any time.

1. Open the provider's console: console.groq.com/keys for Groq, platform.openai.com/api-keys for OpenAI, and so on.
2. Create a new API key. Copy it once (most consoles don't show it again).
3. Open Dimmy → Settings → Providers & keys.
4. Click the card for your provider to expand it.
5. Paste the key in the key field and click Connect.
6. The card header shows a connected status pill when the key is accepted.

Settings → Providers & keys page with provider cards and status pills

## Where the key lives

* Encrypted at rest in keys.enc, in Dimmy's data folder: %APPDATA%\\dimmy\\ on Windows, \~/Library/Application Support/dimmy/ on macOS, \~/.config/dimmy/ on Linux.
* AES-256-CTR with an HMAC-SHA256 authentication tag, encrypt-then-MAC, so a tampered file is rejected instead of silently decrypted.
* The encryption key is derived on the spot from your username and your machine name. Nothing is written to an OS keyring, so there is no permission popup and no admin password on any platform.
* Decrypted only in memory when Dimmy needs to call the provider.
* Sent only to that provider's endpoint, over HTTPS. A URL with credentials in it, with line breaks, or on plain HTTP is refused, the one exception being a server on localhost.

info

If you used an older version of Dimmy, your keys may still be in the system keyring. Dimmy reads them once and moves them into keys.enc the first time it loads. It never writes new keys back to the keyring.

## Multiple keys

Each provider has its own card with its own key field. You can keep keys for Groq, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others simultaneously. Each card shows what the provider can do: speech to text, rewrite, recap.

## One provider, up to three keys

Keys are stored per provider and per job, not one per provider. That means the same vendor can carry more than one account.

| Slot    | Used for                                       | Where it appears                                                                    |
| ------- | ---------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Speech  | Transcribing your audio.                       | The provider card, on providers that do speech to text.                             |
| Rewrite | Applying a style or tone to the transcription. | The provider card.                                                                  |
| Recap   | Summarising a whole meeting.                   | Settings → Output, and only once you turn off "Use my saved key" for that provider. |

Most people never need the third one. It exists for the case where the recap should be billed to a different account than your day-to-day dictation, for example a work account for meetings and a personal one for everything else.

info

More on what leaves your machine: [What Dimmy sends](https://dimmy.app/help/telemetry/) and [Privacy policy](https://dimmy.app/privacy).

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## In this category

[ Providers & ModelsWhich model should you use?Four questions decide it: what machine you have, what must not leave it, which subscriptions you already pay for, and which language you speak. Answer them and the rest follows.](https://dimmy.app/help/choose-your-model/) [ Providers & ModelsLocal mode: transcription on your own machineFour speech engines that run on your device. No API key, no upload, no per-minute cost. Works on a plane.](https://dimmy.app/help/local-mode/) [ Providers & ModelsCloud providers comparedGroq is fastest, OpenAI is the gold standard, Deepgram leads on streaming. All optional. Bring your own key.](https://dimmy.app/help/cloud-providers/) [ Providers & ModelsChoose a local modelThe whole on-device catalogue: nine Whisper sizes, Parakeet TDT v3, four Qwen3-ASR variants and Whistle. What each one weighs and what it runs on.](https://dimmy.app/help/whisper-models/) [ Providers & ModelsOptional on-device LLMRun the LLM enhancement pass locally via llama.cpp. No cloud, no key, no per-token cost. Pick a model to match your GPU memory.](https://dimmy.app/help/local-llm/)

Last updated: 2026-05-22

On this page

1. [01 Where the key lives](#where-the-key-lives)
2. [02 Multiple keys](#multiple-keys)
3. [03 One provider, up to three keys](#one-provider-up-to-three-keys)