Dictation

Turn it on

Dictation is off by default. Go to Settings → Dictation and enable it. Once on, you can start typing with your voice.

Push-to-talk mode

Hold the trigger key, speak, then release to insert the text at your cursor. The default trigger is fn (Globe key). You can change it to ⌃⌥ (Control-Option) or ⌥⌘ (Option-Command), held together, in Settings → Dictation.

Hands-free mode

Double-tap the trigger key to keep the mic on without holding it. Tap once to finish and insert the text. Hands-free stops automatically after about 6 seconds of silence, or 30 seconds maximum.

Recording interface

While recording, a small bar appears showing a live waveform with Cancel and Confirm buttons.

The voice bar — a small pill at the bottom of your screen whenever dictation is on — shows your status. Hover over it to expand it into a mic button (starts or stops hands-free) and a Fix button. Drag it by the handle at the top; it remembers where you put it.

Clean up your speech

Your raw speech is tidied to a level you choose, set in Settings → Dictation:

• Off — keep exactly what you said, stumbles and all.
• Light — drop fillers, fix self-corrections, tidy punctuation and lists.
• Balanced (the default) — clean it up and lightly tighten the wording.
• Rewrite — rewrite for brevity and polish.

With Apply automatically on (the default), cleanup runs after every dictation. Use the Fix button to clean the last thing you dictated on demand, or select any text and tap Fix to clean that instead.

Choose a transcription engine

Go to Settings → Dictation to pick your engine:

• Apple on-device — available on macOS 26+, instant and private, requires no key. The default.
• Local — everything stays on your Mac.
• Gemini — a cloud engine. It includes a built-in temporary key, so you can use it without adding your own.
• OpenAI — a cloud engine that requires your own API key.

Language settings

Dictation auto-detects your language by default. To lock a specific language, enter its two-letter code (for example en, es, fr) in Settings → Dictation.