Dictation on Mac: how to turn it on and use it, step by step

In shortOn a Mac, you turn on dictation in Apple menu › System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation; that's also where you add languages and set the keyboard shortcut. Then click into a text field, press the Microphone key or your shortcut, and start talking. In English, your Mac can add punctuation automatically and, on supported Macs, process speech on the device; in many other languages it can't.

How do I turn on dictation?

Where the setting lives depends on your macOS version. You can see your version under Apple menu › About This Mac.

macOS 13 Ventura and later

1. Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
2. Click Keyboard in the sidebar (you may need to scroll down).
3. Go to Dictation and turn it on.
4. If prompted, click Enable. You can then choose between Share Audio Recordings and Not Now – more on that in the privacy section below.

macOS 12 Monterey and earlier

1. Apple menu › System Preferences.
2. Click Keyboard, then the Dictation tab.
3. Click On, and confirm that you want to enable dictation if asked.

Both versions do the same thing; only the settings window changed: the old icon-based window was replaced by a sidebar list in macOS 13. The rest of this article follows the newer layout; on older systems you'll find the same options on the Dictation tab. Menu names may vary slightly between versions.

How do I choose the language?

The dictation language is independent of your system language: you can dictate in English on a Mac set to another language, and the other way round. To add a language:

1. System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation.
2. Click Edit next to Languages.
3. Select the language and region you speak – for English, there are several regional variants, such as the US and the UK.

If you select more than one language, the current language appears next to the cursor while you dictate – click it to switch, or press the Globe key if your Mac has one. To remove a language, deselect it in the Edit window.

The regional variant matters: it affects spelling (color or colour) and how well accents are recognized. If a language you need isn't in the list, your macOS version may not support it – check again after an update, and compare with Apple's feature availability page.

What's the keyboard shortcut, and how do I change it?

You can start dictation in three ways:

• with the Microphone key, if your keyboard's function row has one (it shows a microphone icon),
• with your keyboard shortcut,
• or from the menu: Edit › Start Dictation.

You'll find the shortcut in System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation, in the Shortcut pop-up menu. Pick one of the options offered, or choose Customize and press the keys you want. The default depends on your Mac, keyboard and macOS version – so the surest way to know is to look in this menu.

If your shortcut clashes with another app's (an image editor or a developer tool, say), choose one you don't use anywhere else. If you dictate a lot, also make sure it's comfortable to press with one hand without looking: you'll start dictation dozens of times a day, and an awkward combination quickly puts you off.

If the Dictation settings are greyed out or missing on a work Mac, your administrator may have restricted the feature. Ask your IT team – as a user, you can't work around that.

How do I dictate into an app, step by step?

1. Click where you want to write – the body of an email, a document, a chat field. Dictation always types at the cursor.
2. Start dictation with the Microphone key, your shortcut or the Edit menu.
3. Wait for the signal: when the cursor is highlighted and starts pulsing, or you hear a sound, start talking.
4. Speak at a natural pace, in whole sentences. You can keep typing or click elsewhere in the text while dictating.
5. Stop with Esc, the Microphone key or your shortcut again.

According to Apple, there's no time limit on how long you can dictate, but dictation stops automatically after 30 seconds without speech. If you pause to think for a long time, just start it again.

Dictation works almost anywhere there's a text field: Mail, Messages, Notes, Pages, Word, web apps, Slack. Where it doesn't, it's usually the app itself that doesn't accept this kind of input – try another app to rule it out.

A workflow that works

For longer texts – an email or a note – try this: first think about what you want to say, and jot down two or three keywords if needed. Then dictate paragraph by paragraph, and check what your Mac wrote after each one. Make corrections with the keyboard: dictation is for getting the raw text down fast, the keyboard is for fine-tuning. If you try to fix mistakes while dictating, you lose your train of thought and end up slower than if you'd typed.

How does the Mac handle punctuation and formatting?

Apple documents the commands you can say while dictating in English. A selection:

According to Apple's feature availability page, English also supports two extras:

• Auto-punctuation: your Mac inserts commas, periods and question marks as you speak. You can turn it off with the Auto-punctuation setting under Dictation.
• Emoji dictation: say the emoji name followed by “emoji” – for example “heart emoji”.

Both are only available in some languages. If you dictate in another language, check the list: Hungarian, for example, supports neither, so you either say the punctuation in that language and see what your system does, or add it with the keyboard afterwards.

Even with auto-punctuation, spoken commands give you more control, because a pause isn't always the end of a sentence. Try a test sentence: “tomorrow at ten works comma but please bring the laptop period”. If you get “Tomorrow at ten works, but please bring the laptop.”, everything is set up. More on punctuation across systems: Dictation on a computer – the complete guide.

Do I need the internet, and where does my voice go?

On Macs with Apple silicon, many languages – including English – can be recognized on the device, without an internet connection. Other languages aren't on Apple's on-device list; for those, recognition happens on Apple's servers, and dictation won't work offline. That's not a bug, just a limit of the language support.

Text you dictate into search boxes is handled differently from general dictation and is processed on the server. You can check how your languages are processed in System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation.

When you turn it on, your Mac asks whether you want to share audio recordings with Apple to improve Siri and Dictation. If you don't, choose Not Now. For confidential content (patient data, legal matters, client information), check your workplace rules first.

In practice: a shopping list or a message to a friend is fine to dictate; the details of a contract or a patient's data only if your workplace explicitly allows it. If you're unsure, check a dedicated dictation app's privacy documentation too: where is the audio processed, and is it stored?

Which microphone does the Mac use?

In System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation, the Microphone source menu lets you choose which microphone dictation listens to. With Automatic, your Mac uses the device it thinks you're most likely to use – usually fine, but if several microphones are connected (built-in, headset, webcam, AirPods), it's worth choosing one by hand.

A word on quality: in a quiet room, the built-in microphone works fine. In a noisy place – a café, an open-plan office – a closer microphone such as a headset gives far fewer errors, because your voice is much louder in it than the background noise.

How do you make recognition more accurate?

• Keep the microphone at a steady distance. On a laptop, don't turn away while speaking, and don't cover the edge of the computer where the microphone sits.
• Turn off anything that hums. Music, a fan, an open window – recognition hears these too, and quiet words get lost behind them.
• Speak in whole sentences, at a normal volume. Whispering and shouting both hurt the result; speaking syllable by syllable is unnecessary, because the system is trained on connected speech.
• Say names and numbers clearly. They're the easiest to mishear, so check them separately before you send.

What's the difference between Dictation and Voice Control?

macOS has two voice features, and they're easy to mix up. Dictation types text at the cursor. Voice Control is an accessibility feature that lets you control your whole Mac by voice: open menus, click buttons, edit text.

They don't run at the same time: according to Apple, when Voice Control is on, it handles dictation too, and macOS Dictation isn't available. So if Dictation won't start for no obvious reason, check whether Voice Control is turned on in Accessibility settings. Which languages Voice Control supports depends on your macOS version – check the settings on your own Mac.

What should you do if it doesn't work?

The most common causes, in the order to check them:

1. Is Dictation turned on? System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation.
2. Is the shortcut right? Check in the same place what's set – it may not be what you're pressing.
3. Are you online? Needed for languages your Mac can't process on the device.
4. Is the right language selected? If it's set to another language, your speech turns into gibberish.
5. Is the right microphone selected? The Microphone source menu.
6. Is Voice Control off? If it's on, Dictation isn't available.
7. Is the cursor in a text field? Try it in Notes – if it works there, the original app is the problem.

If it still won't start, the detailed troubleshooting guide is here: Mac dictation not working – common causes and fixes.

How is a dedicated dictation app different?

Built-in Mac dictation is free and works everywhere, but it types word for word: every “um” and “you know” ends up in the text, and in many languages you have to handle punctuation yourself. If you write a lot every day, fixing all that can easily take more time than dictating saves. To see which way pays off for you: Dictation vs. typing.

A dedicated app such as Mondi goes a step further. It works on macOS 13 and later: press one key – the right ⌥ Option by default – to dictate into any app, and the text arrives cleaned up: filler words are left out, and spoken “period”, “comma” or “at sign” become symbols. It dictates in English and Hungarian. When you're not in a text field, it carries out voice commands (“open…”, “remind me…”). Your audio isn't stored, and your history stays on your Mac. Plans start at $12/month with a 14-day free trial.

Frequently asked questions

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