How to
How to dictatetext on a Mac.
There are two ways to do this. Your Mac already has dictation built in, and for a lot of writing it is genuinely enough. When it stops being enough, a dedicated app takes over. This guide covers both, including the parts where you do not need to install anything at all.
The short answer
Open System Settings, go to Keyboard, and turn on Dictation. Choose a shortcut, then press it anywhere you can type and start speaking. Press it again, or press Escape, to stop. That is the entire built-in feature, and for many people it is all they need.
Step by step
Turn on Apple Dictation.
- 01
Open System Settings
Click the Apple menu in the top left corner of the screen, then choose System Settings.
- 02
Go to Keyboard
Pick Keyboard in the sidebar, then scroll down to the Dictation section.
- 03
Turn Dictation on
Flip the switch. Your Mac may ask you to confirm, and the first time it may download the files for your language.
- 04
Choose your languages
Click Edit next to Languages and select the ones you speak. You can enable more than one, and European and Brazilian Portuguese are listed separately.
- 05
Pick a shortcut
The Shortcut menu decides how you start dictating. Pressing the Fn key twice is a common default. If your Mac has a microphone key in the function row, that starts it too.
Nothing is installed and nothing is bought. Dictation is part of macOS.
In practice
Speaking, and stopping.
Put your cursor anywhere you can type: an email, a document, a message box, a search field. Press your shortcut and speak normally. In most apps you can also start it from the Edit menu, under Start Dictation. To stop, press the shortcut again or press Escape. It also stops on its own after about thirty seconds without speech.
In supported languages your Mac punctuates as you go, adding commas, full stops and question marks without being asked. You can still say punctuation out loud when you want it exactly your way: "question mark", "new line", "new paragraph". There is no limit on how long a single dictation can run.
One thing that helps
Speak in whole sentences rather than word by word. Every speech system, Apple's included, guesses a word far better with the rest of the sentence around it than without.
Honestly
Where the built-in one stops.
It is a toggle, not a hold
You press once to start and again to stop, so the microphone stays open between your sentences and hears the room while you think. Holding a key while you speak and releasing when you are done is a different feeling once you have lived with it.
Changing language takes a click
You can enable several languages, but switching during a dictation means clicking the language shown next to the cursor or pressing the Globe key. If you mix two languages inside one sentence, that is not a workflow.
It types exactly what you said
Every "um", every restarted sentence, every "actually, no, wait". What you get is a transcript, not a draft, and tidying it up afterwards is the real work.
It only listens
Nothing reads text back to you, and hearing a paragraph out loud is the fastest way to catch a sentence that looks fine and sounds wrong.
None of this makes Apple Dictation bad. It is free, it needs no install, on Apple silicon many languages never leave your Mac, and it has no time limit. It was simply built to transcribe, not to write.
When you want more
A dedicated app.
A dictation app keeps the same idea and changes the loop around it. In Sonira you hold one key, speak, and let go. The filler words and false starts are taken out, the punctuation is put in, and finished text lands at your cursor in whatever app you were already using. English and Portuguese in the same sentence is expected behaviour rather than a setting you have to find. It also reads text back to you, which is the other half of working by voice.
One honest note: reading text aloud is in the app today, but the build on this site is still the earlier public release, which has the dictation core without it. Read-aloud reaches everyone in the next public build.
Hold, speak, let go. The text is already tidy when it arrives.
Choose
Which one do you need?
Apple Dictation is enough if
- 01You dictate in one language at a time.
- 02You do not mind tidying up the transcript afterwards.
- 03You dictate now and then rather than all day.
- 04You want nothing installed and nothing to pay for.
Get a dictation app if
- 01You want finished text instead of a raw transcript.
- 02You move between languages inside the same sentence.
- 03You write by voice for hours, and small friction adds up.
- 04You want your Mac to read text back to you as well.
Good to know
Questions, answered.
- 01Does dictation work in every Mac app?
- Anywhere you can type. The text goes in at your cursor, so email, documents, chat, browser forms and code editors all behave the same way.
- 02Do I need an internet connection to dictate on a Mac?
- Not always. On Apple silicon Macs many languages are processed on the Mac itself, so dictation keeps working offline. Other languages are sent to Apple's servers. Dedicated apps, Sonira included, send the audio to a server to transcribe it.
- 03Why does my Mac stop dictating on its own?
- Apple Dictation ends a session after roughly thirty seconds without speech. If you pause to think, it closes, and pressing the shortcut again starts a new one.
- 04Can I dictate in Portuguese on a Mac?
- Yes. Add it under Keyboard, Dictation, Languages. Apple lists European and Brazilian Portuguese separately, which is the right call. What the built-in feature will not do is follow you when you switch between Portuguese and English inside a single sentence: for that you change the language by hand. That gap is the reason Sonira exists.
- 05How do I add punctuation while dictating?
- In supported languages your Mac adds it as you speak. You can also say it out loud: "comma", "full stop", "question mark", "new line", "new paragraph".
- 06Is there anything better than the dictation built into macOS?
- Better at different things. The built-in feature is free, has no time limit and needs no install. A dedicated app gives you hold-to-talk, cleaned-up text rather than a raw transcript, and proper handling of more than one language. Use the free one first, then decide whether the friction it leaves behind is worth solving.
Try the other way.
Free while we're in beta.