How to dictate on your Mac
macOS can take dictation out of the box. This guide shows how to turn it on, start it and stop it. And where its limits are once you dictate regularly.
Turn Dictation on.
Open the Apple menu, then System Settings. Choose Keyboard. There you will find the Dictation switch. Turn it on and confirm the prompt. That is the whole setup.
Start and stop dictating.
Press the Fn key twice. On some keyboards the microphone key or the globe key does the same. It also works from the menu: Edit, then Start Dictation. The cursor has to sit in a text field. To stop, press Escape or the same shortcut again. After 30 seconds of silence, dictation ends on its own.
Speak punctuation and paragraphs.
Say “new line” for a line break and “new paragraph” for a paragraph. You speak punctuation as words, such as “period” or “comma”. In some languages macOS also adds punctuation automatically. Even emoji work by voice, for example “heart emoji”.
Where the built-in feature ends.
Dictation is built for short entries. There is no history: what you dictate exists only in the field you are in. There is no dictionary for names and technical terms. And after 30 seconds of silence it stops, even mid-thought.
Dictating with Hallig.
Hallig runs in the menu bar. You press a key, speak, and the text lands in the focused field and in the clipboard. Every dictation is kept in a history. A dictionary writes recognized terms the way you need them. Recognition runs on the device, and dictations never touch the network. The free tier is 5 dictations a day.
Which one fits you.
For short messages in between, the built-in feature is enough, and there is nothing to install. If you dictate regularly, speak longer texts or want to find your dictations again, use a dedicated app. Both ways work without a cloud account.
Common questions.
Is dictation on the Mac free?
Yes. Dictation is part of macOS and costs nothing. Hallig has a free tier of 5 dictations a day, and more is a one-time purchase.
Does dictation work without internet?
macOS Dictation processes speech on the device by default. In Hallig, recognition always runs locally. A connection is needed once, to download a recognition model.
Why does the shortcut do nothing?
Check System Settings under Keyboard: Dictation has to be on, and note which shortcut is set. The cursor also has to sit in a text field, otherwise the dictation has no target.