How to Dictate on Mac: Turn On Voice Typing in 2 Minutes

To dictate on a Mac, turn on Dictation in System Settings > Keyboard, click where you want the text, press the Microphone key (or your Dictation shortcut), and start talking. Your words appear where the cursor is.

That is all you need for a quick message. The rest of this guide shows each step, the voice commands that save time, and what to do when you want more than the built-in tool gives you.

These steps follow Apple's guide for current macOS (macOS 27). Recent older versions work almost the same way.

Step 1: Turn on Dictation

1. Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
2. Click Keyboard in the sidebar. You may need to scroll down.
3. Find Dictation and turn it on.
4. If a message appears, click Enable.

While you are here, look at the text under the Dictation switch. It tells you whether your Mac processes what you say on the device or sends it to Apple's servers. That matters for privacy. More on that in our guide to offline speech to text on Mac.

Step 2: Pick your shortcut

You start dictation with a key press:

• Microphone key. Many Mac keyboards have a microphone icon on one of the function keys. Press it once.
• Your own shortcut. In the same Dictation settings, open the Shortcut menu and pick the one that is easiest for you.
• Menu option. In most apps you can also choose Edit > Start Dictation.

Pick one and stick with it. After a day it becomes muscle memory. To change the shortcut, make your own, or fix one that does nothing, see our guide to the Mac dictation shortcut.

Step 3: Start talking

1. Click in any text field: an email, a note, a document, a chat box.
2. Press your shortcut. Wait for the cursor to pulse or the ready sound.
3. Speak in a normal voice, at a normal pace.
4. Press Escape, the Microphone key, or your shortcut again to stop.

Dictation also stops by itself if it hears nothing for 30 seconds. If you pause to think, just start it again. If it stops after only a few seconds, see why Mac dictation stops early.

Voice commands that save time

You can add punctuation and formatting by saying it:

• "comma", "period", "question mark", "exclamation mark"
• "new line" for one line break, "new paragraph" for a blank line
• emoji by name, like "heart emoji"

In many languages, macOS also adds commas, periods and question marks for you. If you prefer to control punctuation yourself, turn off Auto-punctuation in the Dictation settings. For every symbol, capital and formatting command, see the full list of Mac dictation punctuation commands.

Dictate in another language

Click Edit next to Languages in the Dictation settings and add the ones you speak. While dictating, switch with the language label next to the cursor, or the Globe key if your keyboard has one.

Not every language and feature is available in every region. If you write in several languages every day, see our guide to multilingual dictation on Mac.

Tips for better accuracy

• Speak in full sentences. Dictation guesses words from context. Complete thoughts come out cleaner than single words.
• Get close to the microphone. A quiet room or a headset helps a lot.
• Do not fix as you go. Say the whole paragraph, then edit. Stopping after every word slows you down.
• Read it once before sending. Names and rare words are the most common mistakes.

When built-in Dictation is enough, and when it is not

Apple's Dictation is free and already on your Mac. For short replies, quick notes and searches, it is often all you need. For other free tools, see free speech to text on Mac.

People usually look for something more when they:

• Write long text. Essays, reports, notes and long prompts, where stopping after every silence gets in the way.
• Need privacy every time. Some setups send audio to Apple's servers. You may want speech that always stays on your Mac.
• Work without internet. On a plane, a train, or a locked-down work network.
• Transcribe recordings. Turning an audio or video file into text is a different job from live dictation. See how to transcribe audio to text on Mac.

That is what TalkFlowy is built for. You press a shortcut, speak, and your words appear live, word by word. Then AutoPaste puts the text into whatever app you are using: Slack, Gmail, Notion, Word, Google Docs, Cursor and more. (Writing in Google Docs? It also has its own free voice typing. See how to dictate in Google Docs on Mac.)

TalkFlowy runs on local AI models on your Mac. Your voice is never sent to a server, and it works fully offline. It supports 50+ languages and can transcribe audio and video files too. It needs an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer) with macOS 14.6 or later. To compare it with Superwhisper, Wispr Flow and MacWhisper, see the best dictation app for Mac or our list of Apple Dictation alternatives.

If dictation is not working at all right now, start with our fix guide for Mac dictation.