Dictate your messages and documents on Mac
With keyboard dictation, you can dictate text anywhere you can type it. Turn it on in the Dictation pane of Keyboard preferences to enable keyboard dictation — where your words are sent to Apple servers to be analysed using the latest language data and converted into text in real time. A feedback window gauges your speaking volume and provides basic dictation controls.
If you need to dictate text and control your Mac using your voice instead of a keyboard and trackpad, use Voice Control. See Control your Mac and apps using Voice Control.
Note: When Voice Control is on, you can’t use keyboard dictation.
Turn on keyboard dictation
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
> System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Dictation.Click On. If a prompt appears, click Enable Dictation.
If asked if you want to improve Siri and Dictation, do one of the following:
Share audio recordings: Click Share Audio Recordings to allow Apple to store audio of your Siri and dictation interactions from this Mac. Apple may review a sample of stored audio.
Don’t share audio recordings: Click Not Now.
If you change your mind later and want to share or stop sharing audio recordings, select or deselect the Improve Siri & Dictation tickbox in the Analytics & Improvements section of Privacy preferences. See Change Privacy preferences.
Note: You can remove the audio recordings from Apple servers whenever you like — see Delete Siri and dictation history.
To dictate using another language, click the Language pop-up menu, then choose your language and dialect.
Add an unlisted language: Choose Customise or Add Language, then select the languages you want to use.
Remove a language: Click the Language pop-up menu, choose Customise, then deselect the language you don’t want to use.
Dictate text
In an app on your Mac, place the insertion point where you want the dictated text to appear.
Press the dictation keyboard shortcut or choose Edit > Start Dictation.
When the feedback window shows a microphone icon
with a fluctuating loudness indicator, or you hear the tone that signals your Mac is ready for keyboard dictation, dictate your text.Note: For best results, speak for no more than 40 seconds at a time.
To insert a punctuation mark or perform simple formatting tasks, do any of the following:
Say the name of the punctuation mark, such as “exclamation mark”.
Say “new line” (equivalent to pressing the Return key once) or “new paragraph” (equivalent to pressing the Return key twice). After you say “new line”, the dictated text appears when you’ve finished dictating.
For a list of the commands you can use while dictating, see Commands for dictating text.
If you set up keyboard dictation for multiple languages and want to switch languages as you dictate, click the language in the feedback window, then choose the language you want.
For information about setting up keyboard dictation for multiple languages, see “Turn on keyboard dictation”, above.
When you’ve finished, press the dictation keyboard shortcut or the Return key, or click Done in the feedback window.
Ambiguous text is underlined in blue. If the text is wrong, click it and select an alternative. You can also type or dictate the correct text.
Set a different keyboard dictation shortcut
By default, you press the Fn (Function) key twice to start or stop keyboard dictation. If you like, you can choose a different dictation keyboard shortcut.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
> System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Dictation.Click the Shortcut pop-up menu, then choose a different shortcut.
To create a shortcut that’s not in the list, choose Customise, then press the keys you want to use. For example, you could press Option-Z.
Change the microphone used for keyboard dictation
The pop-up menu below the microphone icon in the Dictation pane of Keyboard preferences shows which device your Mac is currently using to listen.
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
> System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Dictation.Click the pop-up menu below the microphone icon, then choose the microphone you want to use for keyboard dictation.
If you choose Automatic, your Mac listens to the device you’re most likely to use for keyboard dictation.
Turn off keyboard dictation
On your Mac, choose Apple menu
> System Preferences, click Keyboard, click Dictation, then click Off.