speech to text mac

How to transcribe audio to text using Dictation on a Mac

You can use the Dictation feature built into your Mac to transcribe audio files, and in my experience, it's been about 98-99% accurate, so it saves a lot of time if you want to index your audio files, or you need a transcript for some other purpose.

These instructions were last updated for macOS Monterey 12.4.

First, open up System Preferences, go to Keyboard, then the 'Dictation' tab:

Turn on Dictation, and when prompted, accept the terms for Apple's Dictation service. Also take note of the 'Shortcut' (e.g. 'press dictation key' or 'press control twice'. You'll use that to activate dictation later.

Make sure you have your Mac's microphone selected, then open up TextEdit and create a new document:

Activate the dictation shortcut (e.g. press the dictation key), then start playing back your audio file through your Mac's speakers. The mic should pick up the audio and start transcribing live into the open document.

Bonus: Routing audio internally on the Mac with Loopback

If you have Rogue Amoeba's Loopback , you can also use it to route the audio signal internally , so you don't have to have audio playing out through the speakers.

After you have Loopback installed and running, create a new device called 'Transcription Device'. Delete the default Pass-thru source, and add in Quicktime Player as a new source:

Quit Loopback (the device will still be present on the system after quitting), then go back to the Dictation settings in System Preferences. In there, choose the new 'Transcription Device' sound input:

Transcription Device in System Preferences Dictation

Then go back to TextEdit, and in a new document, activate Dictation using your configured shortcut (e.g. the dictation key). Pop over to QuickTime Player, and play your audio or video file, and watch as the words are transcribed as if by magic!

Live transcription using Loopback from QuickTime to TextEdit on the Mac

Alternative: Welder (or other online services)

As an alternative, you could use an online upload-to-transcribe service like Welder . I tested the same files on Welder that I used with Dictation, and Welder was better about adding punctuation and separating multi-person interviews.

Their transcription feature can be used for free; upload a video or audio file, and within a few minutes, you can read or download the transcribed text.

Dictation on Mac: How to Use Voice-to-Text Typing

Get your mac to type for you.

In case you are unaware, Apple provides a range of Accessibility features on Mac — especially with the recent versions of macOS. Accessibility features, essentially, are features that aid people with disabilities to better use certain functionalities to allow them to operate their devices independently. However, that is not to say that normal users cannot benefit from these features. Since some of the Accessibility features on Mac, such as Voice Over, Zoom, Voice Control, and Speech can also come in handy for those looking to get more out of their actions, and in turn, their device.

If you have been a Mac user for some time, you would be aware (or might have stumbled upon) the Dictation feature. Dictation, again, is an Accessibility feature on Mac. It allows you to speak text (instead of typing) and leverages the power of voice-to-text transcription to get the output in the form of text. Thus, allowing you to type-in text, without having to, well, actually type text. Since the feature can be used by anyone, for any of their use-cases, here’s a guide, with everything about the feature, including the steps on how to use Dictation (voice-to-text typing) on Mac.

What is Dictation and how does it work?

As already mentioned, Dictation is an Accessibility feature on Mac that allows you to speak text and get an equivalent output for the same in the form of text across any input field. You can use it anywhere on your Mac to enter your input using voice. Most importantly, it is not to be confused with Voice Control, which is another Accessibility feature, which allows you to control your Mac using commands.

When you initiate Dictation and speak text, the same is processed by Apple and sent to their servers, where it is analyzed using language data and converted into text in real-time.

How to enable and set up Dictation?

Before you can use Dictation to enter text using voice, the first thing you need to do is enable Dictation from the Settings. Here’s how –

1. Head over to the System Preferences , and select Keyboard .

2. In the Keyboard settings tab, tap on Dictation and select the On radio button next to Dictation.

Once enabled, you can further change related settings for the same, like the input language, shortcut to initiate Dictation, and the input microphone.

1. Change input language – hit the dropdown button next to Language to choose your preferred input language. In case you do not see your language in the list, tap the Add Language button to search and add the language.

2. Set shortcut to trigger Dictation – to set the trigger shortcut to initiate Dictate, tap the dropdown button next to Shortcut and select a trigger option from the list. Alternatively, you can also set a custom key as the trigger for Dictation.

3. Set input microphone – tap on the dropdown button below the microphone (on the left) to select the input microphone.

How to use Dictate to input text?

Once you have set the shortcut to trigger Dictation, in the previous point, you are ready to use the feature to dictate text.

1. Open the app/website/service where you want to enter text and place the cursor in the input field.

2. Double-tap the trigger key you set for Dictation, and in the two prompts that appear, hit Ok and Enable Dictation , respectively. [ Note – you are only required to perform this step when you are using the feature for the first time ].

3. Once you tap the trigger shortcut, you should see a microphone icon, indicating that your Mac is ready to accept dictation. Start dictating your text now. Apple recommends no longer than 40-second dictations for best results.

4. When you are done dictating your text, tap the Done button, or hit the return key to stop Dictation.

Since a lot of the text we type involves the use of various punctuations make the text easier to comprehend and better convey the message, Apple also allows you to input punctuation marks using voice with Dictation. For instance, if you need to enter a comma (,), you can simply speak ‘comma’ in your dictation to include the same in your writing. Similarly, there are a bunch of other punctuation marks that you can use with Dictation, the commands for which you can learn here .

Now that you have discovered Dictation and how to use it to input text without having to actually type it, on your Mac, you can use the same to input text under different circumstances — like when your keyboard is broken, or you do not feel like typing. Not to mention, it can also be of help to those having disabilities, as they can now input text efficiently without having to be completely reliant on someone’s assistance.

How to Use Dictation on a Mac for Voice-to-Text Typing

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Typing isn't for everyone. If you have clumsy fingers or difficulty spelling, typing might be your least favorite part of using a computer. Fortunately, you can use the built-in dictation software on your Mac to speak what you want to type instead.

Unlike Voice Control---which is Apple's fully-featured accessibility tool---dictation is easy to use. It's also so accurate at translating your voice that some of the best dictation software developers, like Dragon Dictate, stopped making their own dictation apps for Mac to compete with it.

How to Use Dictation on a Mac

Double-press the Fn button to start dictating on your Mac. You should see a microphone icon appear or hear a macOS confirmation tone. If this is your first time using Dictation, click OK in the popup window to confirm you want to use it.

After activating Dictation, start saying what you want to type to see it appear on screen. Dictation ignores pauses in your speech, allowing you to take a moment to compose your thoughts. However, this does mean you need to dictate your own punctuation, which we explain below.

Apple suggests you dictate in short bursts of 40 seconds or less. This keeps your Mac from falling behind, since you can speak much faster than it can process what you say.

You can dictate text anywhere you'd usually type on your Mac. That includes writing documents, using Spotlight or search bars, entering web addresses, and composing emails. If that sounds useful, you might want to take a look at these dictation apps for your Android phone as well.

Use any of the following methods to stop dictating:

Press Fn again
Click Done beneath the microphone

Your dictated words appear underlined while your Mac is processing them. After you stop dictating, they'll reformat themselves, and any words your Mac was unsure of appear underlined in blue. Click these words to pick an alternative option or type it out manually if it was wrong.

The more you use Dictation, the better your Mac gets at understanding your voice. This means you'll see fewer mistakes and words underlined in blue less often.

How to Add Punctuation and Format Your Dictation

Chances are that you need to add punctuation to your dictation to make sure it's formatted correctly. This is easy to do while dictating your text by saying the particular punctuation marks you want to add.

For example, to dictate the following text:

Hello, my name is Dan. How are you?

You need to say:

Hello comma my name is Dan period how are you question mark

Apple includes a long list of over 50 punctuation marks, typography symbols, currency signs, mathematical signs, and voice commands you can use with Dictation in the macOS user guide. Visit Apple's voice dictation commands page to take a look at the list yourself.

Along with adding punctuation, you can also use a small set of voice commands to change the formatting of dictated text on your Mac. These commands include capitalization, line breaks, and even typing without spaces.

Say the following voice commands to format text with Dictation:

New Line: Equivalent to pressing the Return key once
New Paragraph: Equivalent to pressing the Return key twice
Caps On/Off: Types the following words in "Title Case"
All Caps On/Off: Types the following words in "ALL CAPS"
No Space On/Off: Types the following words "withoutspaces" (useful for website URLs)

Troubleshoot Dictation Problems on Your Mac

Dictation is a fairly simple tool, but it doesn't work all the time. There are a few different problems that might stop you from being able to use Dictation on your Mac. Here's what they are and how to fix them.

Change the Dictation Shortcut

If nothing happens when you double-press the Fn button, you might have changed the Dictation shortcut on your Mac. You can change this shortcut to whatever you like, or check what the new shortcut is and use that instead.

To do so, open System Preferences and go to Keyboard > Dictation . Open the Shortcut dropdown menu and choose the dictation shortcut you want to use. To create your own, click Customize , then press the keyboard shortcut you'd like.

Dictation shortcut dropdown menu in System Preferences

Test Your Internet Connection

Your Mac requires an active internet connection to use Dictation. This is because Apple processes your voice on its servers---using the latest language data---rather than locally on your Mac.

Without an internet connection, the microphone icon appears with three dots in it, but vanishes before you can start dictating.

To make sure your internet connection is working, try streaming a video on YouTube. To fix problems with your connection, restart your Wi-Fi router and follow our steps to get your Mac connected to Wi-Fi again . Contact your internet service provider for more help.

Choose a Different Microphone to Use

As you dictate, you should see a white bar in the microphone icon that fluctuates with the loudness of your voice. This shows the microphone input on your Mac. If nothing appears in the microphone, your Mac can't hear you. You need to use a different microphone to fix it.

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation . Open the dropdown menu beneath the microphone at the left of the window to choose a different microphone. If you can't see your microphone, make sure it's connected with the latest drivers installed.

Microphone selection from Dictation System Preferences

Change the Dictation Language

To dictate in a different language, you need to add that language in System Preferences and select it from the Dictation icon. Using the wrong language results in a lot of mistakes, as Dictation will use regional spellings or replace what you said with similar-sounding words from another language.

In System Preferences , go to Keyboard > Dictation and open the Language dropdown menu. Click Add Language and check the box next to whichever languages you want to use. Make sure you choose the appropriate region if your language is used in multiple countries.

The next time you activate Dictation, you should see the current language displayed beneath the microphone icon. Click it to change to another dictation language instead.

Dictation microphone with language options

How to Make Dictation as Private as Possible

Dictation communicates with Apple's servers to convert your speech to text. This means it's never completely private, as explained by the popup message that appears when you enable Dictation for the first time. That said, there are still steps you can take to reclaim as much Dictation privacy as possible.

To change the data Dictation uses, open System Preferences and click on Security & Privacy . Go to the Privacy tab and scroll down to select Analytics & Improvements in the sidebar. Disable the option to Improve Siri & Dictation to stop Apple from storing or reviewing your future Dictation recordings.

Improve Siri & Dictation option in Privacy System Preferences

Apple usually does this to help improve Dictation. Even with this option disabled, you still need to delete existing recordings from Apple's servers. Go to System Preferences > Siri and click Delete Siri & Dictation History to do so.

Do More With Your Voice Using Voice Control

Although many people confuse the two, Dictation and Voice Control are two separate features on your Mac. As we've explained, Dictation allows you to convert your speech to text, adding punctuation and line breaks where necessary. But Voice Control unlocks an entire world of voice commands that control your Mac.

If you want to save documents, switch applications, open menus, and do much more with your voice, you need to use Voice Control. This is primarily an accessibility tool; it lets anyone control a Mac using nothing but their voice. Take a look at our Mac Voice Control guide to learn how it works.

Speech Recognition
Speech to Text

MacBook tips: How to use speech-to-text to dictate in macOS

Take notes without a keyboard using this handy feature

Speech-to-text is a handy tool for dictation available in macOS. Once you set it up, you can scribble words to a page using this tool anywhere you would otherwise type with a keyboard. In addition to typing text, you can also enter punctuation marks and formatting such as line breaks and special symbols by speaking the commands.

While this feature was full of glitches and actually made typing more laborious in years past, Apple really has ironed out most of the wrinkles and made it fairly useful. If you find yourself needing a break from the keyboard, it’s definitely worth trying.

It is a handy tool when you need to work hands-free, or jot down a quick note before its lost forever. That said, it’s still not perfect, and I find that it works best when you speak slowly and accentuate bigger words.

1) Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner.

2) In the menu that opens, select System Preferences .

3) In System Preferences, select Keyboard .

4) In the Keyboard window, go to the Dictation tab .

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5) There, switch on the dictation option .

6) Click Enable Dictation to allow Apple to use the recording.

7) In any document processor, click the Dictate icon and start speaking.

8) To change the default language, click the down arrow to open the language drop-down menu .

9) Select a language you would like to convert from speech to text.

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How to Use Dictation in macOS: A Comprehensive Resource

Apple’s macOS includes speech recognition software baked right into the operating system.
You can select from multiple languages, with options varying by which version of macOS you are running.
Dictation is not only a handy speech tool, but it is also a fantastic Accessibility feature.

Use Dictation macOS August 2023 Featured

I’m taking a look at how to set up and use Dictation for macOS. For those that may not know, Apple includes voice recognition software within macOS that is capable of dictating your voice directly to any document that needs text. Dictation is not only useful as an Accessibility feature, but it can be pretty helpful for those that may simply prefer speaking their ideas rather than using their hands to type. This not only saves you from buying third-party dictation products, but Apple’s form of dictation software includes some additional handy tools as well.

Getting it all together, I’m going to take a look at how to use the Apple Dictation feature with macOS, as well as look at some of the advantages of Dictation. This includes setting up the built-in dictation software and then properly using it. I’ll also provide some dictation tips, while also covering additional dictation options as well. Considering this can be incredibly useful for those that need accessibility features, I break the steps down so that the average person can get an idea of what to do. I also go over the common commands you can implement with Dictation while covering additional commands as well.

Keyboard Dictation VS Voice Control: What’s the Difference?

Before starting, folks should be aware that two different Accessibility features on macOS involve speaking to your device . While both are extraordinarily helpful, they serve different functions. While macOS Dictation allows a voice-to-text option, there’s also Voice Control. The Voice Control feature provides voice-to-text options, but you can also control your Mac using voice commands.

Concerning Voice Control and Dictation, the most important thing to remember is that the Dictation feature is not going to work if Voice Control is enabled. You can check to see if Voice Control is active from the menu bar by navigating to Apple > System Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control and ensuring it is disabled.

How to Enable Dictation on macOS

If you need to know how to enable Dictation on your Mac, simply follow these steps. Remember that if you are using an Intel-based processor, you may need an internet connection to properly engage with the Dictation feature.

Time needed: 1 minute

To turn on Dictation on your Mac, follow this guide.

From here, you’re all set to go! Dictation should be ready to go. Next, I will show you how to use Dictation on macOS.

How to Use Dictation on macOS

Now that Dictation is enabled, you can begin to dictate your text to your Mac, offering a great Accessibility feature for those that need it. Simply follow the steps below to begin a Dictation.

Using any app on your Mac, place the insertion point wherever you would like to add text.
Press and release the microphone button (which looks like a microphone) that is within your row of function keys.

You can finish your Dictation by pressing the Return key. Or you can also press your keyboard shortcut, or click Done from the feedback window. Dictation also ends when your Mac doesn’t detect any speech for 30 seconds.

Dictation Privacy: What You Need to Know

One should be aware that the first time they enable Dictation, there’s a chance your machine is going to ask you to share your audio recordings with Apple. Be aware that agreeing to this allows Apple to store copies of your inputs into Dictation. This also includes Siri commands if you agree. Agreeing also means that Apple can listen to portions of your recordings.

It’s up to you whether or not you want to share this information. Remember that regardless of what you choose when you first set up Dictation, you can always change this setting by going to Apple > System Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvement > Improve Siri & Dictation . This will prevent Apple from storing and reviewing your Dictations. However, if you use Dictation, Apple is going to be listening to help process your requests, so keep that in mind.

You should also be aware that if you want to remove your recordings from your disk drive, simply go to Apple > System Settings > Siri & Spotlight > Siri & Dictation History > Delete Siri & Dictation History . Note that on anything before macOS Ventura, the Siri & Spotlight option will just be labeled Siri. Either way, this can be a good way to free up some disk space and remove your Dictation history.

Go Offline: Enhanced Dictation

Depending on what version of macOS you are running, you may have the option for Enhanced Dictation. You will know your Mac has this as an option, as it will simply be a checkbox that you need to click to enable from the Dictation Settings page. Also, be aware that if you are using a Mac with Apple silicon, you will not need an internet connection for Dictation anyway.

This can be extremely beneficial for those that do a lot of work offline. You can always check what processor you are using (Apple or Intel) by going to Apple > About This Mac . If you see the word ‘Intel’ anywhere in the Processor section, you are running an Intel-based Mac.

Key Voice Commands for Dictation

While Apple’s Dictation feature does automatically include punctuation, knowing certain Voice Commands for each type of punctuation is still going to be rather useful, as it substitutes certain key combinations. Being aware of these advanced dictation commands can make the process faster for you. Additionally, there are several other Commands that one should familiarize themselves with as well. Take a look at the complete list below.

Punctuation

Command	Result
Apostrophe	‘
Open bracket	[
Close bracket	]
Open parenthesis	(
Close parenthesis	)
Open brace	{
Close brace	}
Open-angle bracket	<
Close angle bracket	>
Colon	:
Comma	,
Dash	–
Ellipsis	…
Exclamation mark	!
Hyphen	–
Period/point/dot/full stop	.
Question mark	?
Quote	“
End quote	“
Begin single quote	‘
End single quote	‘
Semicolon	;

Special Characters

Command	Result
Ampersand	&
Asterisk	*
At sign	@
Backslash	\
Forward slash	/
Caret	^
Center dot	・
Large center dot	●
Degree sign	°
Hashtag/pound sign	#
Percent sign	%
Underscore	_
Vertical bar	\|

Codes for Formatting

Command	Result
New line	Begins a new line.
Numeral	Formats the next phrase as a number.
Roman numeral	Makes the next phrase a Roman numeral.
New paragraph	Starts a new paragraph.
No space on	Formats the next phrase without spaces.
No space off	Resumes default spacing.
Tab key	Places the cursor at the next tab stop.

Capitalization

Command	Result
Caps on	Formats the next phrase in Title Case.
Caps off	Returns you to the default case lettering.
All caps	Makes the next word in ALL CAPS.
All caps on	Will make your next phrase in ALL CAPS.
All caps off	Turns off caps-lock.

Mathematical

Command	Result
Equal sign	=
Greater than sign	>
Less than sign	<
Minus sign	–
Multiplication sign	x
Plus sign	+

Intellectual Property

Command	Result
Copyright sign	©
Registered sign	®
Trademark sign	™

Command	Result
Dollar sign	$
Cent sign	¢
Pound sterling sign	£
Euro sign	€
Yen sign	¥

Command	Result
Smiling face	🙂
Frowning face	🙁
Winking face	😉
Cross-eyed laughing face	XD

Tips for Effective Dictation on macOS

When using Dictation on Mac, you may need to familiarize yourself with the speech recognition software feature before diving into it fully. Extended use of this program can truly be a help, as it allows your Mac to get a better sense of your voice. The degree of accuracy within the program is only going to increase the more you engage with it.

Additionally, consider your voice and compatible speech when using Dictation. Accuracy rates will only continue to climb if you speak in a clear tone with a consistent pace. Remember to consider the punctuation rules at well. While it may take a bit of use to get the Dictation feature to 100% accuracy, taking extra time working with the program is only going to make things easier.

If you do find that you’re using Dictation for an extended period, or you’re not happy with the results, considering a more advanced microphone may be the way to go. You may also want to consider removing any background sounds or distractions.

Use Dictation with Different Languages

One nice thing about Apple Dictation is that it is available in a multitude of languages, though this is going to vary from Mac to Mac. For example, any Mac running Apple silicon is likely to have more language options than an Intel-based Mac. If you want to use Dictation with another language, you can select a different language from Apple > System Settings > Keyboard > Dictation and select the Language pop-up menu. Choose a language from the list, or select Customize or Add Language to add additional languages. English will more than likely be the default option. Though the default setting may also depend on what language you originally chose when setting up your Mac.

You can also remove languages by going to the Language pop-up menu, selecting Customize and deselecting any languages you do not want to use. It’s also important to note that you can switch languages while you are dictating. So long as you set the feature up for multiple languages, you can select a language from the feedback window and select the language you wish to use.

Dictation and App Compatibility

Concerning Apple Dictation for macOS, any program native to the company is going to work without issues. However, this might not be the case for third-party applications. While countless applications are likely to work, some are likely not, possibly common applications. If you find that Dictation simply isn’t working with a third-party app, remember that the program simply may not support this feature. It can also be a good idea to check an App’s page on the App Store to see if it offers any information in terms of this feature. While you may want to use your application of choice for a specific situation, remember that apps native to macOS may work better with the feature over third-party apps.

Dictation in Siri

In addition to Dictation implementing Apple’s voice recognition software, don’t forget that Siri can also be your handy virtual assistant. Arriving on the scene in Oct. 2011, Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant, and it can be quite powerful on its own. You can think of Siri as a nice combination of Voice Control and Dictation: while Siri is not able to do all of the things that these features can, it can still perform many of them , and perform them well. For example, you can send messages with Siri by asking it “Hey Siri, send a message to. . .” It can also help set reminders and more.

Differences in Enabling Dictation on Different macOS Versions

While different versions of macOS may have different ways they word enabling Dictation, the instructions should be relatively the same. Simply go to Apple > System Settings from the menu bar and navigate to Keyboard. Look for Dictation, and ensure it is enabled. Different versions of macOS may prompt you differently, but the steps are the same. Whether you’re using macOS High Sierra or Sonoma , just remember where the Dictation setting is located, and ensure that it is enabled.

Note that older versions of macOS may refer to System Settings as System Preferences. Essentially, be mindful of the language.

Troubleshooting Dictation: Problems and Solutions

One thing a user needs to remember is that Voice Control and Dictation will not operate at the same time. You can either have one, or the other. If you are enabling Dictation and it is not working for you, ensure that Voice Control is disabled by going to Apple > System Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control and ensuring that it is disabled. Be mindful of your Accessibility settings.

Another issue you may have is your machine picking up their speech. I discuss this elsewhere in this article, but it’s important to reiterate that you may need to spend some time with Dictation to get it exactly where you want it: it may take some practice before it is perfect. Also, be aware that Dictation will highlight ambiguous text with a blue line. If the program finds a statement unclear, you can click the text highlighted in blue and make the corrections suggested by Dictation. You can also dictate or type your corrections. If you have been using Dictation for a while and it is still making several mistakes, you may want to consider a different microphone.

You may also want to remember that you may not hear audio coming from other apps while you are using Dictation. However, this is an easy one to fix. If you are not hearing audio from any of your apps, simply wait 30 seconds without saying anything to get Dictation to close on its own, or have it stop listening for audio by pressing the Return key.

Apple’s built-in speech tool isn’t just powerful, it can be outright necessary for certain individuals. Of course, an important thing to remember is that macOS Dictation is going to work best as a digital assistant for official Apple apps. You may also want to remember the importance of clarity while recording your voice. I recommend giving Dictation a try and seeing if it works well for you, though be mindful of my recommendations as well. Experimentation is almost always a good thing. Of course, feel free to let us know in the comments what your experience was, or if there is anything that you would recommend.

3 thoughts on “ How to Use Dictation in macOS: A Comprehensive Resource ”

One warning about Mac speech dictation: it mutes the sound for other apps. You can get fooled by that if you accidentally leave speech dictation (the little mic icon) on. Then, if you attempt to watch or listen to something somewhere else, you will not have sound. It took me a few minutes to figure out why I had no sound in a different app – I had previously left speech dictation on in a previously used app and it was on another one of my Mac’s 3 displays.

I’m trying to convert a lecture from an MP3 file into text using Pages. Is this possible? Have tried without any luck. Thank you very much for your help.

To do it manually, you would be able to use dictation on the Mac if you spoke what the lecturer was saying. For audio transcription you would need specialized software. One example I found is called Descript .

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How to dictate on a Mac computer, using the voice-to-text dictation feature that can type out your speech

You can dictate on a Mac computer so that your computer types out your speech.
But before you can start using dictation, you'll have to enable it via your Mac's System Preferences, and decide the shortcut you'll use to turn it on, as well as the language it will dictate in.
Here's how to set up and use the dictation feature on a Mac computer.
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Voice-to-text is a helpful feature for those who are often out and about.

And for those who have a Mac computer, you can take that feature and use it in your everyday workflow. The key is a built-in feature known as dictation.

But before you can take advantage of dictation, you'll have to enable it. After that, it works similarly as any voice-to-text feature, any you may be able to access more in-depth voice commands to format your document.

Here's how to set it up and start using it.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Macbook pro (from $1,299.99 at best buy), how to set up dictation on a mac.

1. Click the Apple logo in the top-left toolbar, then choose "System Preferences."

2. Select "Keyboard."

3. Toggle over to "Dictation" in the menu at the top of the window.

4. Next to "Dictation" select "On" and if desired, turn on enhanced dictation by ticking the corresponding box — this allows you to use additional commands, like bold, italics, underline, copy, delete, and undo — and dictate without an internet connection (enhanced dictation is only available for those with OS X Mavericks v10.9 or later ).

5. Set the language and create the desired shortcut.

How to dictate on a Mac

Once you've enabled the dictation feature, here's how to use it:

1. Open a document.

2. Place your cursor to the desired location for your dictation.

3. Use the shortcut you established when setting up dictation; alternatively, you can also select "Edit" and then "Start Dictation."

4. Start talking.

You should see a microphone icon appear on the screen after you start the feature.

As you speak, it's important to remember to say your desired punctuation out loud, otherwise you'll end up with a long, run-on sentence. To stop dictation, click "Done" below the microphone icon.

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Dictation on Mac: your ultimate guide to effortless voice input

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Table of contents, unveiling the magic of dictation, getting started: enabling dictation with ease, using mac’s commands for dictation, formatting like a pro: from punctuation to emojis, enhanced dictation and siri, dictation beyond mac: the apple ecosystem, tailoring dictation to your style, accessibility and inclusivity, troubleshooting and overcoming dictation challenges, the future of dictation on mac, speechify transcription: the easiest way to convert speech to text, 1. how can i customize the dictation feature on my mac, 2. can i use dictation for more than just typing out text, 3. how does dictation on mac compare to other speech recognition software like dragon.

Are you an Apple expert who's always looking for ways to make your Mac experience even better? Look no further – we're about to dive into the exciting...

Are you an Apple expert who's always looking for ways to make your Mac experience even better? Look no further – we're about to dive into the exciting world of dictation on macOS. Whether you're a seasoned Mac user or just starting your Apple journey, this comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about using dictation , its accessibility features, and the wonders it can do for your productivity. So, let's embark on this voice-powered adventure together!

Imagine a world where you can control your Mac with just your voice – no keyboard hogging your desk space, no finger acrobatics on the trackpad. That's the beauty of dictation! This nifty feature, nestled within your macOS, allows you to speak your thoughts, and watch them seamlessly transform into text on your screen. It's like having your very own Siri butler at your service, ready to take your spoken words and turn them into written brilliance.

Start by navigating to your Mac's "System Preferences." Yes, the iconic Apple menu that's always at your beck and call. Once you're in the System Preferences, keep your eyes peeled for the "Keyboard" section – that's where the magic happens. Under the Keyboard settings, you'll find the "Dictation" tab, waiting for you to unravel its powers.

With a single click on the "Enable Dictation" button, you'll unleash a world of possibilities. Before you jump headfirst into dictation adventures, don't forget to choose your preferred language. After all, it's the key to accurate transcription, ensuring your dictated text comes out just the way you intend.

As you venture into the realm of dictation, you'll quickly realize that it's not just about converting your words into text – it's about having complete control over your Mac with the sound of your voice. Picture yourself crafting emails, composing essays, and even surfing the web without lifting a finger. The possibilities are endless!

But how do you command your Mac to do your bidding? It's all about mastering dictation commands. Simply start dictation by pressing the "fn" key twice or using a customizable keyboard shortcut that you can set up in the dictation settings. Your Mac will then be all ears, waiting for you to dictate your wishes.

Dictation isn't just about the words; it's also about expressing yourself flawlessly. Need a comma to pause your thoughts? Just say "comma." Longing for a new line? Utter the words, and your cursor will obediently jump to the next line. Even those quirky emojis you love – you can dictate them too, by saying their names.

And what about those tricky punctuation marks? Don't fret – dictation's got you covered. Whether it's a question mark, exclamation point, or ellipsis, simply name the punctuation mark, and watch your Mac sprinkle them like magic.

Picture this: you're lost in thought, dictating away, and suddenly, you realize you need to look something up. Enter Enhanced Dictation, the superhero version of dictation that doesn't require an internet connection. With Enhanced Dictation, your words flow smoothly even when your internet connection decides to take a coffee break.

And speaking of superheroes, who could forget Siri? Your trusty digital assistant is always ready to lend a hand – or rather, a voice. Ask Siri to "start dictation," and watch as your words dance across the screen, effortlessly brought to life by your Mac's dictation prowess.

But wait, there's more! Dictation isn't confined to your Mac. It spreads its wings across the entire Apple ecosystem, from your iPhone and iPad to your MacBook. That's right – whether you're on the go or cozied up at home, you can enjoy the wonders of voice dictation across your devices.

And the icing on the Apple-flavored cake? iCloud synchronization. Your dictated text seamlessly syncs across your devices, ensuring you're never out of the loop, no matter which Apple gadget you're using.

Dictation isn't a one-size-fits-all deal – it's all about making it work for you. Head back to the dictation settings, and you'll find a world of customization waiting for you. From dictation shortcut setup to language preferences and even personalized dictation commands, your Mac bends to your will, ensuring your dictation experience is as unique as your voice.

Here's the true magic of dictation: its role in promoting accessibility and inclusivity. For differently-abled users who might find traditional typing challenging, dictation opens up a world of possibilities. It's a bridge that connects individuals with their devices, allowing them to express themselves effortlessly and navigate the digital landscape with ease.

Like any adventure, your dictation journey might have its share of challenges. We're here to guide you through the rough patches. From tackling inaccuracies to ensuring clear and articulate dictation, we've got the troubleshooting tools you need to keep your voice dictation ship sailing smoothly.

As macOS Ventura takes center stage, the world of dictation is set to evolve even further. Imagine dictating not just text, but also navigating menus, controlling apps, and more. With voice control and speech recognition technologies advancing by leaps and bounds, the future holds exciting promise for the world of dictation on Mac.

Looking to take your newfound dictation skills beyond your Mac ? Say hello to Speechify Transcription – your ultimate partner in turning spoken words into written gems. Whether you're transcribing podcasts, extracting wisdom from YouTube or TikTok , or even capturing those epic Zoom meetings, Speechify Transcription has got your back. Available on iOS, Android, and PC, it seamlessly syncs with your devices, ensuring your brilliance is never out of reach. Don't miss out on this game-changer – give Speechify Transcription a try and witness your spoken ideas come to life in a whole new way!

The dictation feature on your Mac is all about catering to your preferences. To customize it, head to the "System Preferences" and find the "Keyboard" section. Within the "Dictation" tab, you'll discover a range of options to fine-tune your experience. From setting up personalized dictation commands to choosing your preferred language and adjusting your dictation shortcut using the "fn" key, you're in control. It's like tailoring your Mac to understand and respond to your unique voice. Speechify Transcription can help navigate you through all this with ease!

Absolutely! Dictation on your Mac isn't limited to typing words. It's a versatile tool that extends beyond simple text entry. You can harness its power for speech-to-text conversion like Speechify Transcription does, effectively turning your spoken words into written content. Additionally, you can command your Mac to perform tasks like starting apps, navigating menus, and even controlling certain functions through voice commands. It's like having a virtual assistant at your beck and call, right from your Mac's menu bar.

While both dictation on Mac and third-party speech recognition software like Dragon offer similar functionalities, there are distinct differences. Mac dictation is seamlessly integrated into the macOS environment, making it easily accessible through your system settings. On the other hand, software like Dragon might provide advanced features but could require separate installations and configurations. With Mac dictation, you can enjoy the convenience of using voice commands to control your device and input text directly into text fields, new paragraphs, and more. Plus, it's all tied to familiar Mac functions like the return key and capitalization shortcuts, making it a natural extension of your OS X experience. Don’t forget Speechify Transcription is there to save the day with its performances making your life easier.

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Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

Use Voice Control on your Mac

With Voice Control, you can navigate and interact with your Mac using only your voice instead of a traditional input device.

How to turn on Voice Control

Requires macOS Catalina 10.15 or later

Choose Apple menu  > System Settings (or System Preferences).

Click Accessibility.

In Accessibility settings, click Voice Control.

Turn on Voice Control. If you're turning on Voice Control for the first time, your Mac might complete a one-time download from Apple.* Voice Control becomes available after the download.

When Voice Control is turned on:

In macOS Ventura or earlier, a microphone icon appears on screen. It represents the mic selected in Voice Control settings. To stop listening, click Sleep under the microphone. To start listening, click “Wake up.” You can also say “Go to sleep” or “Wake up.”

How to use Voice Control

Get to know Voice Control by reviewing the list of voice commands available to you: Say “Show commands.” The list varies based on context, and you may discover variations not listed.

If you're using macOS Sonoma or later, you can learn and practice Voice Control commands using an interactive guide:

Choose Apple menu  > System Settings.

Click Accessibility in the sidebar, then click Voice Control on the right.

Click the Open Guide button.

To make it easier to know whether Voice Control heard your phrase as a command, you can turn on “Play sound when command is recognized” in Voice Control settings.

Basic navigation

Voice Control recognizes the names of many apps, labels, controls, and other onscreen items, so you can navigate by combining those names with certain commands. Here are some examples:

Open Pages: “Open Pages.” Then create a new document: “Click New Document.” Then choose one of the letter templates: “Click Letter. Click Classic Letter.” Then save your document: “Save document.”

Start a new message in Mail: “Click New Message.” Then address it: “John Appleseed.”

Restart your Mac: “Click Apple menu. Click Restart” (or use the number overlay and say “Click 8”).

You can also create your own voice commands .

Number and name overlays

Use number and name overlays to quickly interact with parts of the screen that Voice Control recognizes as clickable, such as menus, checkboxes, and buttons.

To turn on item numbers, say “Show numbers.” Then just say the number to click it. To turn off item numbers, say “Hide numbers.”

To turn on item names, say “Show names.” To click a name, say “Click” and the name. To turn off item names, say “Hide names.” This feature requires macOS Sonoma or later.

These overlays make it easy to interact with complex interfaces, such as web pages. For example, in your web browser you could say “Search for Apple stores near me.” Then use the number overlay to choose one of the results: “Show numbers. Click 64.” (If the name of the link is unique, you might also be able to click it without overlays by saying “Click” and the name of the link.)

Voice Control automatically shows numbers in menus and wherever you need to distinguish between items that have the same name.

macos-sonoma-macbook-pro-voice-control-show-numbers

Grid overlays

Use grid overlays to interact with parts of the screen that don't have a control, or that Voice Control doesn't recognize as clickable.

Say “Show grid” to show a numbered grid on your screen, or “Show window grid” to limit the grid to the active window. Say a grid number to subdivide that area of the grid, and repeat as needed to continue refining your selection.

To click the item behind a grid number, say “Click” and the number. Or say “Zoom in” and the number to zoom in on that area of the grid, then automatically hide the grid. You can also use grid numbers to drag a selected item from one area of the grid to another: “Drag 3 to 14.”

To hide grid numbers, say “Hide numbers.” To hide both numbers and grid, say “Hide grid.”

macos-sonoma-macbook-pro-voice-control-show-window-grid

When the cursor is in a document, email message, text message, or other text field, you can dictate continuously. Dictation converts your spoken words into text.

To enter a punctuation mark, symbol, or emoji, just speak its name, such as “question mark” or “percent sign” or “happy emoji.” These may vary by language or dialect.

To move around and select text, you can use commands like “Move up two sentences” or “Move forward one paragraph” or “Select previous word” or “Select next paragraph.”

To format text, try “Bold that” or “Capitalize that,” for example. Say “numeral” to format your next phrase as a number.

To delete text, you can choose from many delete commands. For example, say “delete that” and Voice Control knows to delete what you just typed. Or say “Delete all” to delete everything and start over.

To dictate character by character, say “Spelling Mode,” then speak each character. This feature requires macOS Ventura or later and isn't available in all languages.

Voice Control understands contextual cues, so you can seamlessly transition between text dictation and commands. For example, to dictate and then send a birthday greeting in Messages, you could say “Happy Birthday. Click Send.” Or to replace a phrase, say “Replace I’m almost there with I just arrived .”

To manually switch between modes, say:

“Command Mode”

“Dictation Mode”

“Spelling Mode”

You can also create your own vocabulary for use with dictation.

Create your own voice commands

Open Voice Control settings, such as by saying “Open Voice Control settings” or “Open Voice Control preferences.”

Click Commands or say “Click Commands.” The complete list of all commands opens.

To add a new command, click the add button (+) or say “Click add.” Then configure these options to define the command:

When I say: Enter the word or phrase that you want to be able to speak to perform the action.

While using: Choose whether your Mac performs the action only when you're using a particular app.

Perform: Choose the action to perform. You can open a Finder item, open a URL, paste text, paste data from the clipboard, press a keyboard shortcut, select a menu item, or run an Automator workflow.

You can also select a command to find out whether other phrases work with that command. For example, “Undo that” works with several phrases, including “Undo this” and “Scratch that.”

To quickly add a new command, you can say “Make this speakable.” Voice Control will help you configure the new command based on the context. For example, if you speak this command while a menu item is selected, Voice Control helps you make a command for choosing that menu item.

Starting with the latest version of macOS Monterey, you can also import or export voice commands .

Create your own dictation vocabulary

Click Vocabulary, or say “Click Vocabulary.”

Click the add button (+) or say “Click add.”

Type a new word or phrase as you want it to be entered when spoken.

Starting with the latest version of macOS Monterey, you can also import or export vocabulary .

For the best performance when using Voice Control with a Mac laptop computer and an external display, keep your laptop lid open, use an external mic, or use a display with a built-in mic.

If you're using a Mac mini, Mac Studio, or Mac Pro, you must use an external mic or display with a built-in mic.

All audio processing for Voice Control happens on your device, so your personal data is always kept private.

Use Voice Control on your iPhone or iPod touch .

Learn more about accessibility features in Apple products .

* If you're on a business or school network that uses a proxy server, Voice Control might not be able to download. Have your network administrator refer to the network ports used by Apple software products .

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Best Dictation Software For Mac of 2024 (Free & Paid)

Why spend hours typing when you can dictate text in less than half the time? Speech recognition technology can save you time, money and stress so we tested and reviewed the most accurate dictation apps for Mac of 2024.

Whether you’re a business report writer, lawyer, secretary, author, journalist, technical writer or medical professional you’ll find Mac compatible speech-to-text software here that saves you valuable time and fits your budget.

In our research and testing, we found that the best dictation software on a Mac is Otter (Free) which offers incredible levels of accuracy and speed especially for transcribing conversations or meetings.

Quick Navigation

1. Otter (Free)

2. dragon dictate (best for accuracy), 3. macos dictation (best apple app), 4. macwhisper (best for writers), 5. google voice typing (best google app), 6. microsoft word (best for microsoft office), 7. dictation.io (best free web app), 8. onenote for mac (best for note taking), 9. speechnotes (best for chrome), 10. deepscribe (best for medical dictation), what is dictation software, why use dictation software, do macs have a dictation tool, dictation microphones to enhance recognition, useful dictation tips.

In our tests, we found Otter was the best dictation app for Macs overal l thanks to its impressive accuracy, ease of use on a Mac and generous free forever plan too .

Otter can be used for any kind of dictation although it has positioned itself more recently as an “AI meeting assistant” for transcribing meetings and sales meetings with tight integration with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

Most importantly though, it was the only dictation tool that came close to the industry standard tool Dragon Dictate (see review below) in terms of accuracy and speech-to-text recognition.

It also works in any browser on a Mac whereas Dragon Dictate will only work on a Mac in a virtual machine running Windows since Nuance has discontinued the Mac desktop version.

Otter has many useful touches for meetings such as Speaker Identification which is ideal for transcribing Zoom meetings as it automatically detects different voices and transcribes them separately.

Otter also allows you to import audio and video files which it will then transcribe automatically.

It also includes a feature called “Otter AI chat” which allows you to chat within the app to other Otter meeting members and teammates to get instant answers to meeting questions.

Although there’s no desktop app, there is a Chrome extension for Otter which automatically detects if you’re about to enter a Zoom Meeting, Google Meet or Google Calendar appointment.

The Otter app also offers one of the best free plans with 300 minutes of dictation per month although there’s a limit of 30 minutes per session.

However, you’ll need to subscribe to Otter Pro starting at $10 per month for up to 1,200 minutes for transcription per month with a limit of 90 minutes per transcription.

The Otter Business Plan allows you to use Otter in multiple meetings at the same time for up to 6,000 minutes with a limit of 4 hours per conversation or meeting.

If you pay annually, the pricing plans are 40% cheaper so it’s well worth doing as you’re almost getting it for half price over paying monthly.

Enterprise plans are available on request for company wide deployments.

Our advice is to try the free version of Otter to see just how well it transcribes, meetings and just about anything you throw at it on your Mac.

Pricing: Free for 300 minutes/Plans starting from $10/month

Although Dragon Dictate is the industry standard when it comes to dictation, the reason it only comes second on our list is that Nuance discontinued the Mac version back in 2018.

However, you can still use the Windows version of Dragon Dictate on a Mac by running Windows on your Mac using a virtual machine.

Even though this adds an extra layer of software, we still think its worth doing because of the amazing accuracy and sophistication Dragon Dictate offers compared to any other dictation tool.

Dragon products use unique Deep Learning technology that actually learn your accent and speaking style to deliver accuracy rates of up to 99%.

In fact Microsoft was so impressed by Nuance’s range of products including Dragon Dictate that it bought Nuance for $16 billion in 2021.

The big downside for Mac users is that to use it, you need to run Windows on your Mac.

By far the easiest and best way to run Dragon Dictate on a Mac is by using Parallels which makes it simple to install Windows on a Mac.

In fact, one of the World’s leading Dragon Dictate teachers Scott Baker recommends using the Windows version of Dragon on a Mac because the Windows version of Dragon has more features anyway.

In particular, the Windows version gives you more control when tweaking and refining texts compared to on macOS.

Dragon Professional is ideal for office environments as it’s optimized for reducing background noise such as in cubicles. It also has Smart Format Rules which understand how you want phone numbers, dates, abbreviations and other data to appear.

Another nice touch is that you can import audio clips from a device such as your iPhone and Dragon Professional will transcribe it into text.

The accuracy isn’t quite as good as live dictation but it’s a lot faster than typing it out. This is especially useful for journalists who have to record and transcribe long interviews.

With Dragon Professional, there is also an option to listen to audio playback of your own dictation with the associated text highlighted on the screen making it easier than ever to proofread while supporting multi-tasking.

Dragon Dictate Professional also integrates with many word processing software on Mac too including Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Scrivener and more.

Note that Nuance has discontinued the Home Edition of Dragon Dictate and you can now only get Dragon Professional Individual and Dragon Legal.

Unless you’re in the legal profession, we strongly recommend going with Dragon Professional Edition not least because it allows you to dictate directly in Microsoft Office and other apps.

There’s also Dragon Anywhere which is the mobile version of Dragon Dictate.

Pricing: $699

Dictation is Apple’s own free dictation app (and the equivalent of WSR – Windows Speech Recognition) that has been a feature since macOS Sierra.

Up until macOS Mojave, Dictation used it’s own voice recognition system but from macOS Catalina onwards, it now relies on Siri.

The good news for those concerned about privacy is that on Apple Silicon Macs with the M1, M2 and M3 chips, you can transcribe offline as long as your language is supported by Apple for offline dictation.

However, on older Intel Macs, anything you dictate in Apple Dictation is sent back to Apple’s servers so it may not be suitable if you want to dictate personal or confidential information.

Apple’s Dictation tool in macOS has improved significantly over the years and although it can’t compare to professional dictation apps, it’s free and works on your Mac desktop.

Dictation also works in many word processors on a Mac , messenger apps and just about any app that allows you to type.

By default it’s only suitable for dictations of 30 seconds or less but you can turn-on Enhanced Dictation for unlimited transcriptions.

To enable Apple Dictation in macOS Ventura and Sonoma:

Go to the Apple () logo in the top left of your screen and select > System Preferences > Keyboard
Click on the Dictation Tab
Switch Dictation “On”

In macOS Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey Enhanced Dictation has been removed by default because anything you dictate is now translated by Siri.

Siri is far more accurate than the old Enhanced Dictation engine in macOS and even allows you to dictate offline on a Mac for supported offline languages.

If you want to delete your dictation history in Siri at any time:

Go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences > Siri
Click Delete Siri and Dictation History

If you’re still using High Sierra or Mojave, you can also dictate offline without being connected to the internet by activating “Enhanced Dictation” in the Dictation tab.

Be aware though that this requires 422MB of disk space to download some additional tools before it can work on your Mac.

You then simply configure a language and hotkey to start dictation or you can even activate it with a keyword. You can use this to start dictation in any application.

Dictation works with any app including Office applications (although not Google Docs which has its own voice recognition feature – see below).

What we also like in Apple Dictation is that the voice controlled formatting commands are quite extensive and you can even create your own customized commands.

Dictation also supports over 60 languages including English, Arabic, Chinese and Spanish.

If you’re looking for a free desktop dictation tool on your Mac that works offline for major languages, macOS Dictate is definitely worth trying.

Pricing: Free

MacWhisper is a free tool that uses the incredible power of OpenAI to quickly and accurately transcribe interviews, conversations, meetings and lectures on your Mac.

MacWhisper has a Mac desktop app and apart from the free version, is also available as a one off purchase for €29 for batch transcriptions and many other added features.

MacWhisper is very basic but supports dragging and dropping audio files for transcribing and can even export transcripts for subtitles in .srt and .vrt format.

The app also allows you to dictate offline – all transcription is done on your device using a local OpenAI model and nothing is sent to servers to protect your privacy.

MacWhisper supports over 100 languages and works on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. However, because the processing power required to transcribe is quite high, we recommend an Apple Silicon Mac with an M1, M2 or M3 chip.

If you want a free, offline app for basic dictation then MacWhisper is one of the best free dictation apps we’ve tried on a Mac.

You can buy MacWhisper direct from the developer Jordi Bruin or from the Mac App Store .

Pricing: Free/€29 one off purchase for Pro version

Not many people are aware that Google Docs has a surprisingly powerful free voice recognition engine which not only transcribes speech to text but also allows you to change the formatting of documents with voice commands.

Google Docs Voice typing is arguably even more accurate than Apple Dictation and it has now been updated to work with most browsers, such as the latest versions of Firefox, Edge and Safari.

To activate Google Docs Voice Typing, open any Google Doc and go to Tools > Voice typing… and click on the microphone that appears to start transcribing.

voice recognition mac - google voice typing

Google Docs Voice Typing is pretty accurate for a free online text-to-speech tool.

Probably the most impressive thing though is the an extensive list of commands for formatting text.

You can simply say things like “go to end of paragraph” or “create bulleted list” to perform formatting actions. Note that formatting commands are only available in English but the voice engine recognizes over 50 languages.

If you’re a Microsoft 365 subscriber then did you know you can use the speech to text function in Microsoft Word for Mac?

Microsoft Word is surprisingly good at recognizing speech and transcribing text as it is continuously being improved by being trained with Microsoft’s huge user base and artificial neural networks.

MS Word’s in-built dictation tools are easy to use:

Go to Home > Dictate in Microsoft Word for Mac
Click on the Dictate button and wait for the red button to appear
Start talking and Word will transcribe your speech in real time

You can also use voice commands for punctuation and formatting.

Currently it only supports a few languages although Microsoft are adding to this all the time.

If you’re unsure about getting a Microsoft 365 subscription, check out our look at Microsoft 365 vs Office for Mac .

Pricing : Requires Microsoft 365 subscription

Dictation.io is a web based dictation platform that works on any browser on a Mac and supports over 100 languages.

The service is based on Google Speech Recognition so the accuracy is very good and its very quick at transcribing text.

Because of this though, Dictation.io only works in Google Chrome – it’s not compatible with Safari or Firefox and it also does not work on mobile devices.

Dictation.io saves all of your transcriptions in the browser so nothing is saved online unless you click “Publish” in which case, your transcriptions will be available publicly.

Other options include the ability to save transcriptions in a text file, tweet them, play the audio of it, email it and print it.

You have to grant Dictation.io permission to use your Mac’s internal microphone in Chrome too although this is only activated when you’re using Dictation.io.

You can’t dictate offline with Dictation.io either so you need to be online all the time.

OneNote For Mac is Microsoft’s note taking software for Mac and Windows and the Mac version now supports dictation.

If you’ve already got Microsoft Office For Mac or Microsoft 365 account then you’ll already have OneNote on your Mac.

Of course, OneNote isn’t really suitable for dictating letters and essays but it’s ideal for jotting down notes, memos and conducting research for later.

The dictate feature in OneNote for Mac allows you to format and organize text from speech and uses artifical intelligence (AI) to transcribe speech to text.

OneNote For Mac dictation also supports auto-punctuation although you can disable this.

OneNote for Mac dictation supports 50 languages and you can also filter out swear words or profanity.

To use dictation in OneNote for Mac follow these instructions:

Go to Home > Dictate while signed into Microsoft 365 on any Mac with a Microphone which includes MacBooks.
Wait for the Dictate button to activate.
Start speaking and you will see text appear in OneNote.

You can find more information on how to dictate in OneNote for Mac here .

You can also read about some excellent alternatives to OneNote for Mac here .

Speechnotes is a cheap and cheerful online speech-to-text service which works in Google Chrome and on Android devices.

Speechnotes actually uses Google’s own voice recognition engine so it’s basically just an enhanced version of Google Docs Voice Typing tool.

There’s also a Speechnotes Chrome extension which allows you to voice type directly into any website including Gmail, WordPress and most other text fields.

Speechnotes claims to be a free alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking and although the accuracy can’t really compare with Dragons products, it’s pretty good. Unlike Dragon Dictate, Speechnotes also can’t be used to voice control your Mac either.

Speechless gives you the advantages of Google’s voice recognition engine but with the added advantage of things like an Android app although there’s no iPhone app.

Pricing: Free / Plans starting from $1.9/month

deepscribe medical dictation software mac

Medical professionals need specialist dictation tools and privacy protections and DeepScribe is the best medical dictation software for Mac users.

DeepScribe works via iOS apps for iPhone and iPad but anything that is recorded and transcribed on it is then available on your Mac.

DeepScribe uses AI to filter out small talk and irrelevant parts of conversations with patients, doctors, nurses and doesn’t require prompting when you want it to record.

The AI used by DeepScribe has been trained on more than 2 million patients as it has the biggest database of medical conversations in the world.

The aim of DeepScribe is to remove the administrative burden from Clinicians so that they can spend more time with patients and giving care.

DeepScribe also integrates with EHR solutions including AdvancedMD, AthenaHealth, ClaimPower and many others. The AI technology in DeepScribe is also HIPAA compliant and protected by multi factor authentication and user access restrictions.

Pricing: On Request

Dictation tools enable your Mac to translate spoken words into written text which enables you to write much more than typing alone.

The average person can only type anything up to 1,000 words in half an hour.

However, most people can speak up to 4,000 words in the same time period – that equals a massive potential increase in your productivity especially if you’re having to do tediously jobs like transcribing meetings or business conversations.

Text to speech is already in everything from Siri to Google Docs although professional dictation apps offer much greater accuracy as they actually learn how you talk.

There are many reasons to use dictation software on your Mac but some of the most important ones are:

It increases productivity as you can talk much faster than you can type.
It saves valuable time transcribing meetings and other tedious tasks.
Dictation is safer for you. Excessive typing is one of the most common reasons for repetitive strain injury on hands and the more people type on both keyboards and mobile phones, the bigger the problem is getting. Other keyboard related injuries on the rise include Tendonitis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Quadriplegia.
You can note down things hands free (for example when cooking, eating, doing the laundry etc).
It prevents you forgetting ideas that you meant to type out later. It’s an especially good way for creative writers to get all their ideas down on paper without editing along the way.
It’s more confidential than dictating notes to a secretary or colleague.
Dictating cuts down on scribbled notes on pieces of paper if you want to go paperless .

Since macOS Catalina including Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma you can dictate on a Mac using macOS Dictation.

Dictation is based on the Siri personal assistant tool and although it doesn’t do a bad job of transcribing text, using macOS Dictation to dictate on a Mac is not as accurate as professional dictation software.

Because its based on Siri which is still mainly designed as a personal assistant to launch apps, answer questions and generally speed-up your workflow, Apple is slowly moving Siri closer towards being a more viable dictation option for Mac users.

macOS Dictation is now available in 64 languages although only major languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese work offline.

Note also that only Apple Silicon Macs can process data in macOS Dictation offline. Anything you dictate in macOS Dictation on Intel Macs is sent via Apple’s servers.

For more on this, check out our guide on how to dictate offline on a Mac .

In these reviews, we tested a combination of offline and online dictation programs that can be used on a Mac.

Note that web-based voice recognition and voice-to-text recognition apps all require a permanent internet connection in order to work and no not work for offline dictation

The in-built microphone on Macs is good but you’ll definitely get better results by using an external microphone or dictation headset.

External mics and headsets not only pick up your voice better because the microphone is closer to your mouth, but they’re better at reducing background noise.

You’ve got three different options when it comes to dictation devices: Wired Headsets , Wireless Headsets and Desktop Microphones .

The best option for you obviously depends on whether you want to wear something on your head, walk around, or just speak into a mic next to your Mac.

A good Wired Headset for dictation is the AAAPrice noise cancelling USB headset which is optimized for Dragon Dictate although works with any dictation program.

If you like to walk around, buy a Wireless Headset but just be careful with the range as it can vary wildly depending on the model. One of the best we’ve seen is the Logitech Wireless Headset which has an impressive Bluetooth range of up to 300 feet.

If you prefer not to wear something, Microphones deliver just as good results although you may find yourself craning over the desktop ones more than sitting up straight like you can with a headset.

Dictation microphones vary in price with basic ones like the FIFINE USB microphone going for around $20 ranging up to the professional handheld Nuance PowerMic microphone costing over $200.

Dictation in itself can be a strange experience if you’ve never done it before. It can feel strange at first talking to a computer and hearing the sound of your own voice constantly.

There’s a few other things to be aware of specifically related to the way dictation apps work too.

The most important thing in any dictation app is how accurate it is at recognizing your voice. You will inevitably have a certain amount of correction to do whichever app you choose but the more accurate it is, the less errors you’ll have to correct. Most apps require you to do a certain amount of speaking first before using it so it can familiarize itself with your voice and accent.
All dictation apps have their own commands and way of working. Some definitely feel easier to use than others and once you get used to the way one works, it’s a pain to switch software at a later date.
Dictation obviously limits when and where you can work. If you’re in a public space such as on a train or even in an open plan office, it’s less private to dictate not to mention more complicated due to background noise.
You’ll make more mistakes constructing sentences dictating rather than typing. On a keyboard, you have more time to think, go back and revise, delete etc. It’s harder to formulate sentences perfectly thinking off the top of your head but the advantage is your output is more “uncensored”.
Try to avoid filler words like “erm”, “so..” and “OK” because editing these out later is a real pain. It’s actually much harder than you think to avoid filler words as it’s such a natural part of most people’s speech. Try to just take a pause or be silent instead while you think what you’re going to say next. To help avoid filler words, before you start dictating, have a rough plan of what you’re going to say.

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If you want to keep Dragon working, don’t upgrade to Sonoma.

I had kept Dragon 6 working natively on my sequence of Macbooks Pros and MacOS versions until updated to Sonoma recently. Now Dragon flags errors when it opens. I’ve been very lucky keeping it working this long. I now have to decide whether to buy a Windows Version of Dragon and to install it on a Parallels VM.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Did you have a Time Machine backup of your previous version of macOS? If so you can roll back to it easily. If not, you can also use Recovery mode on your Intel Mac to roll back to Ventura or use a bootable installer of Ventura.

I’m looking to buy a new MacBook next month and would really like to be able to use Dragon Professional 16 on it, having had no luck with other dictation software so far. I have some questions I hope you can help with: Is running it on Windows 11 via Parallels the best option to do this? What Macbook specs would you recommend for this set up? I’d prefer to spend extra and get one will run it all easily and last me a good while than skimp on price/specs and end up needing to upgrade again

Yes, that would be your best option. Presuming you’re buying a new Apple Silicon MacBook Pro with M1, M2 or M3 chip you would only be able to run Windows ARM on it . Although Dragon Dictate doesn’t work natively in Windows ARM, Windows ARM can translate Intel only apps like Dragon Dictate to work on a Mac. In terms of Specs, any new MacBook Pro will more than be enough for running Windows Dragon Dictate although we’d probably avoid the latest 14 inch M3 model as it may be a little bit lightweight for running Parallels .

Otter’s free plan now only allows 300 mins free.

Thanks for the update.

I’m looking for some dictation software, but when I attempted to use Siri I encountered the problem mentioned above, that it cuts out every few seconds. My main concern though is that it states in the T&Cs that everything you write in it is sent to Apple, ostensibly to improve the product. This makes it of no use where other people’s confidentiality and privacy is concerned. The purpose I want dictation software for is very much to do with confidentiality obligations. I don’t think the article above mentions that as an issue at all. I imagine there will be other providers of dictation software who have the same policy as Apple/Siri, but this issue doesn’t feature in your reviews. Any guidance would be welcome.

It used to be possible to dictate offline on a Mac with the “Enhanced Dictation” feature but it was removed from macOS Catalina onwards. With products such as Dragon Dictate however, once they are installed and activated you don’t need to be online to dictate as all the language packs and speech recognition tools are downloaded on your desktop.

Re 10.15 Catalina at least: Apple Dictation under Siri is a huge step backwards: it is not usable: It times out regardless of your speaking (and of the above steps, ie turning it on in Preferences.) AND now, ANY TIME YOU TOUCH THE KEYBOARD it turns off. Previously you could use the keyboard AND Dictation. Now it is “beep beep” while you’re trying to think and compose. Unusable in my opinion. Since these were clearly conscious choices, and since usability is a company strength, my cynical side suspects they must have opted to aggressively cut open server threads for the sake of ??? increasing their profits. Sorry but I really liked what was there.

Why do you say that the best dictation software for Mac is Dragon, when Dragon is NOT available for mac?

Because you can use it on a Mac by using Parallels which allows you to run Windows on your Mac. This is made pretty clear in the article. Even if there’s no native Mac version, Dragon is sill the best dictation software in terms of accuracy and voice recognition.

That’s fair. What isn’t exactly clear, at least to me, is whether you can actually use the Parallels/Windows Dragon directly in Mac apps? Your post mentions something about Desktop Publishing software which seems to imply that, but it isn’t clear how it really works, or if it does with ease. Otherwise, one would have to get Mac versions of all apps and install them inside the Parallels Windows instance, which isn’t really the same thing as having Dragon usable on Mac. If I’m going that route, I might as well go ahead and switch to a native Windows device because I’ll be using Windows as the primary OS.

Yes only Windows applications in Parallels will work with Dragon. Depending on the license you have though, some software and apps such as Microsoft Office allow you to install more than one installation within Windows and macOS on the same license. But in some cases, you may have to purchase the Windows version of the app too in order to use it with Dragon.

Dragon Dictate Professional 15 will not run in Parallels and MacOS if you are running an Apple CPU such as the M1 or M2 chip. Dragon Dictate will not run on the Windows ARM version.

Dragon Naturally Speaking does run in Parallels running Windows ARM as long as you’re using Parallels 18.0.1 or later. Windows ARM can “translate” Intel only software to work in Windows ARM including Dragon. There was an issue with Dragon not working in Parallels 18 running Windows ARM initially but an update to Parallels fixed it.

Having bought Dragon 6.0.8 for Mac years ago, I still have it running very well natively on my MacBook Pro with OS 13.1. I’ve successfully migrated it several times with both hardware and software updates.

Not much help to others, I know.

I agree with Andy – excellent dictation on Mac. Sadly I had to stop using it because my older Mac OS version was 32 bits vs. the news ones 64 bits. (And the 6.0 version is probably no longer available. The big picture is: Microsoft has bought Dragon from what I hear – and then ‘killed’ the MacOS version… Is this fair competition?

It can be a little buggy but I am still able to use Dragon Dictate 4.04 on my MacBook Air running Monterey 12.2.1. With each Mac OS update I worry that it will fail to work but it’s still going strong, for which I am thankful.

Your Instruction for Mac For High Sierra IS WRONG! In systems Preferences, there is NO “Dictation and Speech”!!! There is Only ‘SirI’!

If you go to the Apple () logo in the top left of your screen and select > System Preferences > Keyboard you will see the Dictation Tab where you can Switch Dictation to “On”.

They are greedy and determined to make us give them all our data. They took off the ability to easily dictate off line in the last two upgrades/. Just greedy. and I do not like them acc essing everything. It is just so wrong.

I agree, but Tim Cook doesn’t see the advantage in this? But, then, Apple is trying to be a force unto itself and to hell with everyone else. Mistake.

It is really frustrating that Apple and Dragon can’t work together to provide dictation for the Mac equal to that available for Windows. Apple should accept that developing their own software to match Dragon is not cost effective and the best way for them would be to partner with Dragon. Apple are just that bit too proud, I suppose.

I have a new Air M1 and an older Mac laptop w Dragon on it. Parallels on the Air was a nightmare, so I dictate w Dragon on the older Mac and transfer it over to my new Air. Can’t be bothered with all the special software I had to download and install bc I have an M1. Why hasn’t Mac come up with a Dragon version of their own? Are they still in the “I’m typing all of this” dark ages?

Mac Version 4 is ancient… I used to have Mac Version 5 way back in 2015. His boastful post is nearly useless for this decade and what’s currently available.

Unfortunately, Mac’s dictation feature is extremely buggy to the point of being unusable. At first it only worked in just a few apps for me, then, without me changing anything, it quit working altogether. Voice commands like “paste that” still work everywhere but actual dictation of text is completely non-functional. It’s hard to believe that it’s 2021 and a leader like Apple fails so badly at accessibilty.

I should have said “Unless you use Parallels”, of course. I am a Parallels user, but for me Dragon works fine natively

I’m using Dragon 6.0.8 (14812) on Mac OS 11.4 and it works fine. Fortunately, Dragon has been preserved through each Mac Book Pro replacement. It has survived through transfers of accounts and apps using Migration Assistant. I very much doubt if there is a now way of installing Dragon on any Big Sur Mac.

It’s Mac Version 4.0.4 (13062).

Surprise. Dragon Dictate is working seamlessly on my Mac with Big Sur. It had been balky with Catalina but Big Sur somehow brought it back to life. No need for Parallels at this juncture.

Can you confirm which version of Dragon Dictate you’re using as the latest version 15 is Windows only?

So, in reality, there is no way to really just point a cursor in a document or mail and just start voice-typing on a Mac? I have Dragon, but it seems not to work in Catalina. Version 5.5 I have Parallels but don’t have a PC version of Dragon… for $200+ dollars. Seems Mac is behind on this important ability.

Very interesting article.

I have PARALLELS and know the DRAGON software well. My hesitation: many anecdotal reports were that it was hard to dictate from DRAGON on Windows to Mac applications

If this hurdle could be overcome, I would buy & install DRAGON WINDOWS in a heartbeat.

All the best,

Hello Andy, Thanks for your helpful comments. I am using the latest version of Parallels. I was trying to use the on-line install when I ran into difficulties. Since then Nuance have provided me with a temporary direct download ling for the complete .exe file and I am glad to say the installation has worked and I now have Dragon 15.61 running in my VM environment. My next challenge is now to make the necessary changes so I can dictate in English and in German. Cheers Hans

I am fortunate that I have Dragon running on Big Sur without recourse to Parallels, but I do use Parallels a lot for other things. It is no surprise that Nuance don’t support Dragon on Parallels. However, most Windows apps are oblivious to being run on Parallels. Dragon might differ because of the complexity of audio being routed through the Mac to the Windows virtual machine or the download process is sensitive to being run on a VM. The latter seems to be your current problem. Is the download just a download of an install package or an online install process, I wonder. If the former, you might try the download on a ‘pure’ Windows PC and copy the install package over. Are you using Parallels 16.1.2 the latest? Good luck!

Thank you for the clear article. I have followed your advice but have found that the Parallels/Windows 10 based approach is quite difficult to install. I have been trying for several days to download the Dragon Pro exe file and have not succeeded. I have tried three different browsers, have disabled the Windows Firewall but it simply does not work for me. The Nuance Download manager displays the message ‘creating download’ and gets stuck there without any progress. Nuance support are trying to help but make it quite clear that the Dragon on Windows on Parallels is not a supported environment. I would be grateful for any suggestions how to resolve this.

I am using MacOS 14.02. Do you know if Dragon Dictate professional works on this version?

As stated in the article, the Mac version has been discontinued. You need to run Windows on your Mac in order to install it but yet, it will work running Windows in macOS 14.02

I would be interested if the author of this nice article actually has used Dragon Professional for Windows on a Mac using Parallels? It sounds so nice. However, I bought Parallels and Dragon Professional…the Parallels was fine (although the fan ran constantly) but the Dragon on it never worked well and transferring to WOrd on Mac side was so clunky. I gave up trying (I have a day job!!). I am back using Dragon for Mac on Mojave with my wonderful library of words that I have trained over 10 years. It works fine. I am afraid to upgrade though and am looking for anyone who has tried it on M1 chip Macs.

Worth observing that some have had trouble installing Dragon 6.0.x on Catalina or even earlier MAC OS versions.

I originally installed an earlier version of Dragon, perhaps as much as 10 years ago. Since then I have taken every Dragon upgrade and every MAC OS upgrade including the Big Sur Public Beta and used Migration Assistant when I bought each new Mac. I’ve been lucky, perhaps.

It’s likely anyone wishing to do a clean install of Dragon on Catalina will fail.

Anyone who has Dragon 6.0.8 running on Mojave is likely to be able to get it working on Catalina or Big Sur by adopting my approach. Do NOT try going direct from Mojave to Big Sur.

Like some others, I have found that Dragon 6.0.8 works satisfactorily with Mac OS Catalina, despite support having been withdrawn by Nuance. Dragon remains my dictation tool of choice on the Mac.

In the last month, I have installed the Mac OS 11 ‘Big Sur’ public beta and I find Dragon still works.

There were a few problems selecting the microphone to dictate with, but that is just a change to Big Sur’s bluetooth selection.

I am dictating using my AirPods rather than a headset. I am usually in a quiet environment.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with it. Interesting that you’ve managed to get it to work with macOS Big Sur already.

Let’s face it: we Mac/IOS users continue to be at a disadvantage when it comes to dictation software. Ever since Nuance discontinued Dragon Dictate in 2018 we’ve had little to turn to. Apple’s current built-in dictation software (Catalina) is about where Dragon Dictate was around 2012 – it doesn’t “learn” or improve with us very well and you can’t even easily copy or download the commands for it found in Preferences.

We can hope for improvement with upcoming Big Sur and IOS 14, but chances are Apple will continue its traditional emphasis on gaming, glitz, and the creative arts other than serious writing. For serious long form writing beyond the memo we’re stuck with using the ancient Dragon Dictate 6, patching something else together, or paying a couple hundred dollars to install Parallels and Windows and buying the latest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking 16 for PC. Why bother using a Mac for dictation with all this going against us?

My setup: MacBook pro dec 2016; Catalina; MS Word 2019 standalone version (not 365); LG 5K display w/mic and camera; iPhone

OK, so this is how I do it: 1. record memo on iPhone Voice Memos 2. use airdrop to move memo to MacBook 4. Open Word 5. ->Edit -> Start Word Dictation 6. open and play the memo 7. watch Word listen to it and type it into the document

Pretty cool.

Obviously, I can just dictate straight into Word, but this is how I can input a memo made on my phone. I also played the memo on the iPhone in front of the microphone, and that worked too.

Interesting solution. It’s a bit long winded for most users but if you find the accuracy is good, then it’s a clever workaround.

My Mac version of Dragon crashed after many years of use. So installed Parallels and Windows 10. I installed Dragon Professional on this. I crashed after a day or two; when I called for support, Dragon said they did not support Dragon on Parallels. They offered to return my payment, which I accepted. Does anyone know if Dragon will run successfully under Bootcamp. Maybe I could try again with Dragon Professional, it worked well until it totally crashed and would not load.

After reading this article, I installed Parallels, Windows, and Dragon onto my Mac. I had used Dragon back in 2014, and am in need of dictation software again. The problem is that I’ve only been able to figure out how to dictate into a dictation box in the Windows window. I can get it to transcribe into any of my Apple apps. Is this a real limitation? Or is there some way to dictate into the programs I want to use, such as Scrivener?

Unfortunately you won’t be able to dictate into programs on macOS using Dragon Dictate installed in Windows under Parallels. It will only only work with Windows programs so you could use the Windows version of Scrivener instead.

Thank you for your prompt response. So, do you think it’s worthwhile to spend the time and effort to correct it is always mistakes by hand or his mistakes by hand? I mean, all his mistakes.

It’s worthwhile if you’re going to rely it for dictation but you may find you spend more time correcting than dictating in the long run. Dictation will probably improve in future versions of macOS though.

Thank you for your very helpful article. I am the published author of several books. During the recent pandemic, I have been Writing more than usual and my fingers started to hurt. In Seoul and so I’ve been using the Apple dictation the built in Apple dictation feature on my MacBook Air, my iPhone, and my iPad in various applications. My big question this question is does this thing learn? And if so, how do I make it learn my fission Lee learn more efficiently and faster? I have the Viking pression vegan impression vague impression that it works better on my cell phone damn on MacBook. Sb is this because the microphone is better? Any advice you are others may have for me would be much appreciate it. I’m also dismayed to read in your article that dragon the dragon has discontinue serving the Mac. I wrote this using dictation with a minimum amount of editing. Thank you very much!

macOS dictation doesn’t “learn” to recognize your voice in the way Dragon Dictate does. However, as you correct it manually, it will learn how to recognize those particular words better in future.

If we had a government that actually cared about regular citizens this wouldn’t be a problem as Nuance’s patents would be lifted by Congress because (1) they have a monopoly on the software; and (2) they refuse to share a significant minority of users in the Apple and Linux, etc. communities. This isn’t rocket science. Nuance should be either compelled to serve Mac OS users or lose the protections given to them by the US Government. This situation is analogous to a Pharma company patenting a vaccine for Covid-19 but refusing to market it.

Hope this helps at least a few people. I use Dragon Dictate 6.0.8, the last version available before Nuance pulled the plug on us. I installed it on this Mac (late 20`9 with Catalina) from a Time Machine backup of my older Mac. Dragon works just fine here, better accuracy than Apple Dictation and Voice Control. I dictate a lot of long book notes into Word and Scrivener with no problem. I don’t use it to control the computer or transcribe text from another source.

I just purchased a 2020 MacBook Pro, OS Catalina and am trying to figure out how to access the built-in speech recognition system when I’m offline. In comparison to my old (now defunct circa 2010) MacBook Pro, it doesn’t appear that I have the offline option as detailed above. When I click the “on” button for dictation, I get a msg. stating what I dictate will be transmitted to Apple to be converted into text, as well as other info such as names of my contacts. I want the option of dictating when off-line and am also leery of sending Apple my names of my contacts. Any ideas? Also, is Dragon Professional compatible with Mac OS Catalina?

It is possible to dictate offline in macOS Catalina but Apple has changed the way you activate it. It’s also not great if you need it for non US English languages.

As stated in the article, Dragon Professional has been discontinued on Mac but you can still run it on macOS Catalina by installing Windows on your Mac .

How do you judge TEMI or dictate2us v/s REV?

Aaaaand for the rest of us who’s Apple dictation simply does not work – the frustration is without bounds. I have tried EVERY possible site and absolutely no results. I have been using the build in Mac dictation for quite some time and I am happy with it – although I sometimes need to make a correction it is better than having to type up every single word. I am working on a publication with a deadline. Needless to say I am so unhappy about not getting dictation to work. I am currently searching for software to buy as I simply cannot continue like this. Very disappointed in Apple.

Yes John I agree with you about Apple. When apple started it was for artists, creators, and it offered a more secure, closed system free from all the tech problems that plagued windows. I was one of those artists that they counted on while they built their market share. I bought the 17 in laptop because I needed the real estate for my photoshop work. I am no longer their target market. They now cater to the masses so the 17 in can’t be special ordered or bought in any way. So, we see how apple treats those that supported them in the beginning as they built their name and market share. We aren’t their masses anymore. We are the artists and creators – still only the 5%, but probably the top 5%.

I would really love to move to a better dictation system than my built-in Mac version and I hate the thought of installing Windows on my Mac just to get Dragon.

So, tell me more about your experience running Dragon on Mojave; are you still happy with it? And, is it still possible to purchase the Dragon for Mac somewhere?

A few days ago I decided to give up on High Sierra and Dragon for Mac because it was a pain to use. So I decided to upgrade to Mojave and rely on Macintosh dictation. Just for fun, I tried out Dragon and found that works much better on Mojave than it does on High Sierra.

So far, I haven’t detected any major problem.

That’s interesting because according to Dragon, it still doesn’t support Mojave.

Anne-Louise, you’ve made a profound contribution to this discussion. I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, and it’s devastated my ability to write. I’ve been described by others as a truly exceptional writer, and one editor/publisher told me “Don’t let life get in the way!” (of my book writing).

Life got in the way.

RA makes every single keystroke painful.

While RA might not be seen in the disability community as a truly disabling condition, I’ve discovered that it truly shuts down anything involved in my personal writing process.

So: All I can really contribute is a “me too” reply, but I hope that software developers, MacHow and similar blogs and sites, will take notice and advocate for better dictation options for Mac users who can’t type.

I have Parallels, and installed Dragon on it, but cannot get it to recognize the microphone plugged into the Mac. I spoke with Parallels support, and they were unable/unwilling to help. They said it was a Dragon problem.

Is there some video or web page that will guide me on how to get Dragon to work with Parallels? I am running Windows 10.

Does the error generate a technical report in Parallels? If so you can send the details to Parallels via Parallels Help Menu and they will try and diagnose the problem.

So how well does running Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows on Parallels work? I have a Macbook Air 2014 w/ 8 GB Ram, and SSD drive. Has anyone tried this?

Yesterday, I used my computer (iMac) for the first time to dictate some material. The results were better than I had expected but not really completely satisfactory, so the thought of buying the Dragon version occurred to me. I had read about Dragon many years ago, so I presumed, perhaps unreasonably, that it would still be the best dictation software for my iMac. I had my finger on the Amazon purchase trigger, but then I decided t read the reviews. They were terrible. Not one of the Dragon models received even mediocre reviews. Now, I have my reservations about Amazon reviews, but I can’t disregard them, either. I was stuck. Buying a Dragon package seemed like a gamble with the odds against me, and I hadn’t decided what to do until I read your comments. I’ll certainly have to consider them. Installing a Windows’ product on my iMac instead of using a product designed for the Mac seemed ridiculous, but you’re the expert, and I’m not. I’m going to see what others have to say on the subject. That may seem overly cautious, but I am not a computer expert, so it is very possible that I might end-up blaming myself for problems caused by the software. Well, one thing is certain, I won’t be buying anything tonight.Thanks for improving my chances of success.

I will no doubt catch a lot of heat for this…but I believe that Apple has abandoned the idyllic original idea of the Mac being the computer created for “the rest of us” to give regular, every day, non-techie people, a computer that was friendly, simple to use… non-elitist. Apple should stop depending on companies like Nuance and Microsoft and a host of others who have interest in Mac users only so long as they are compliant with their wishes with no respect for us as significant users. Over the years, my first Mac was the Plus when it came off the line, I have seen Apple slowly drift away from its original tenets. Apple could easily develop great Dictation Software to help not just the ordinary at home user but also the handicapped and the professional. Maybe the focus should be diverted from continuing to build exotic new operating systems and to start agin to build user helpful and friendly computers and software for the “rest of us” who do not want to bow down to the world of Windows and its cohorts. God knows we spend enough on our Macs to get this done for us.

Nuance just discontinued the only available comprehensive voice dictation software for Mac, leaving disabled Mac users in the lurch.

For over a decade, disabled computer users have relied the only 2 comprehensive voice dictation software programs available-: Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows, and Dragon professional for Mac.

Nuance abruptly terminated and ended support for Dragon professional for Mac on October 18, 2018, leaving disabled Mac users in the lurch.

Mac users who upgrade their operating systems risk losing being able to continue to use their voice dictation software, due to software incompatibilities.

(Nuance warned Dragon for Mac users not to upgrade to more operating systems to Mojave, saying that it was not tested or supported.)

Only 3 limited and unsatisfactory options at present:

1) Not upgrading their Mac operating systems, in order to continue using Dragon for Mac. (However, this will not be an option when buying a new Mac, as it will not give the option of an older operating system).

2) Buy loads of expensive new Windows software to run voice dictation on Mac ( approximately $570).

3) Mac users abandoning Macs and switching over to Windows across the board.

For those who do not rely on voice dictation due to a disability, be assured that the voice dictation capabilities that exist on a Mac computer at present are not remotely as comprehensive as a full-fledged voice dictation program. It’s analogous to rollerskating across the United States versus driving in a car.

It seems important to get visibility about the issue before the public, Apple, potential software developers, and the disability community, in the hope of encouraging addressing the future void for disabled Mac users being able to continue using their Macs.

It is sobering to realize that a commercial third-party software monopoly has the potential to completely turn a disabled person’s tech world upside down by discontinuing its product.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment and you make a very good point about disabled users being left in the lurch by Dragon’s decision. Unfortunately, even if you install Windows on your Mac and then install Dragon Dictate, you still can’t control your Mac with it via voice. Dragon Dictate for Mac was by far the best tool for voice control and it’s a big loss for the disabled community that relied on it. In future versions of macOS, it would be nice to see Apple add more comprehensive voice controls so that you don’t have to resort to third party software in the first place.

I advise staying away from Dragon Dictate in any form. True, it works well but this is NOT a Mac oriented company. Support when I used the app was terrible, frequently rude and combative. Apple’s Dictation is very similar to Dragon, and I found it to be a viable asset for my Mac as it is 100% Mac supported!

I think Dragon simply didn’t think it was worth putting resources into supporting the Mac version, hence the poor customer support you experienced and the eventual decision to drop it. The problem is that it’s still the best dictation software on the market, particularly for professionals in the medical, legal and other fields. As mentioned in the article, even professional writer and Dragon Dictate expert Scott Baker uses a Mac but actually recommends installing Windows on your Mac and using the Windows version because it’s that good. As you say though, for general needs, macOS Dictate is a very good alternative nowadays.

How to use dictation on your Mac

Once again, I am in a place where I can’t work directly with my servers to test the NetInstall steps and images, so… we’ll take a brief detour here to take a quick look at your Mac’s built-in dictation features.

I can hear you now

You may think you have to wait for Siri to appear in macOS Sierra before you can talk to your Mac, but your Mac already has a way to listen to everything you say and to turn what it hears into text. You can enable this feature, which supports over 30 languages and many more dialects, using the Dictation & Speech preference in System Preferences.

Apple’s speech to text features are turned off by default, so before you can use this feature you need to turn it on.

Open System Preferences.

Click Enable Dictation. The default keyboard shortcut to begin dictating is to press your Mac’s fn key twice. If you aren’t using an Apple keyboard with an f* key, make note of or choose a different shortcut key.

Let’s give this a test:

Open the TextEdit app.
Select File > New to create a new document.
Tap the fn (or your selected shortcut key) twice and began speaking to your Mac.

Note that what you say will almost immediately begin to appear on your screen. You should also note that your normal speech doesn’t make for very good text, because your normal speech doesn’t usually include punctuation. So, let’s work out a little “speech-to-text”.

Learning to speak again

Instead of your normal speech, speak the following italicized text exactly as it’s written, but first, press the fn key twice:

This is great

Exclamation point

I’m using Apple’s speech to text feature

New paragraph

Pretty great

Isn’t it

Question mark

When you’re done, press the fn key.

As you can see, this isn’t exactly pretty sounding speech, but, as you can also see, what you said is exactly what appears on the page. And that’s pretty great!

So, about that warning

By default, Apple’s dictation feature uses Apple’s servers to convert your speech to text. This can be a problem, because whatever you’re saying gets sent across the Internet, converted to text, and sent back to you; and if you don’t have access to the Internet you can’t use this feature. So let’s remedy that:

Click Dictation & Speech.
Put a check in the box that says Use Enhanced Dictation.

You Mac will download the speech-to-text translation files to your Mac’s hard drive. As soon as the download is complete you’ll have access to the dictation feature without an Internet connection and you don’t have to worry about your romantic love poetry traveling to infinity and beyond to get turned into text.

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How To Enable The Speech To Text Mac Shortcut In macOS

Here’s how to enable a speech to text Mac shortcut in MacOS.

Want to talk to your computer and have it type for you? Setting up a speech to text Mac shortcut is easy to do and doesn’t require any additional Mac dictation software. The macOS already has voice to text natively built into the operating system. Here’s an easy speech to text Mac shortcut tutorial for beginners.

Open System Preferences

Keyboard options, dictation & language selection, enhanced dication & offline access, setup a speech to text mac shortcut, place your mouse where you want to start dictating text, press your assigned function key or sequence, start talking, macos speech to text tips, how to use speech to text on macos.

To use speech to text on macOS, you first need to turn it on. This is a very easy tutorial. If you are very Mac savvy, then just enable the Dication feature under the Keyboard setting in System Preferences . Or follow the steps below. Let’s begin!

On your Mac, choose the Apple menu in the top left of your menu bar and select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

Apple > System Preferences

Enable Speech To Text Mac Shortcut In Macos - The Keyboard Settings Under The Macos System Preferences

After you open the System Preferences panel, you’ll see a collection of preference icons. Select Keyboard .

System Preferences > Keyboard

Speech-To-Text Dictation Options Under The Macos'S Keyboard System Preferences

There are several sub-options under the Keyboard ‘s Dictation submenu: Keyboard, Text, Shortcuts, Input Sources, Dictation.

Click on the Dictation sub menu.
Turn on Dictation .
If you’re asked if you want to improve Siri and Dictation, click Not Now .
Choose a Language . To dictate using another language besides English, click the Language pop-up menu, then choose a language and dialect.
Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation > On

Screenshot Of The Macos Enhanced Dictation Option

Enhanced Dictation is optional. You can skip to the next step if you want.

Do you want the ability to dictate speech to text without an Internet connection? Depending on your installed version of the macOS, you might be presented with an option to enable offline dictation. This could be useful if you are in an area with limited connectivity or want to use this feature while on an airplane.

Just be aware that this feature requires at least a gigabyte of hard drive storage. Make sure you have extra space for these files before trying to install.

Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation > Use Enhanced Dictation

How do you want to tell your Mac to start listening for your speech to text input? The default Mac speech to text shortcut for dictation is to press the Function key twice. But you can use the Command, Control, or whatever keys you want. Just select Customize to change to the keyboard shortcut of your choice.

Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation > Shortcut

How To Dictate Text

Man Casually Dictating A Speech To His Macbook Laptop

Once you’ve enabled the Dictation feature and selected your keyboard shortcut, you can now start speaking into your computer and letting it type for you. Try using this speech-to-text feature to compose an email . You’ll be surprised how much time this feature can save you on a daily basis!

Open a document or locate a text field where you want to start dictating text.
Click your mouse in the place where you want to start dictating.
Press the Function key twice (or whatever keyboard shortcut you previously selected).
A microphone icon should appear with a fluctuating loudness indicator and make a chirp sound.

Once the microphone is active, your computer will start to turn your voice into text.

Start talking. Speak clearly and only try to dictate in short bursts. Try one or two sentences at a time.
When you’re finished dictating, press your keyboard shortcut key again.

Here are some tips for using the speech to text feature on macOS:

Speak clearly and slowly. If you speak too fast, or mumble, your dictation results will be bad. Going back to re-edit everything isn’t worth the time. Just do it right the first time.
Speak in smaller chunks. Don’t try dictating a college commencement speech in one try. The Mac speech to text function isn’t made to listen for long periods of time. Smaller sections that are 60 seconds are less work best.
Avoid background noise. If possible, move to a quiet area. Background noise can cause unpredictable results with the Mac dictation software.
Speak punctuation marks as needed. If you want to end a sentence, then just say “period” or “questions mark” and the dictation software will add that punctuation for you.
Create new lines or paragraphs. To create a new line or a paragraph break, just say “new line “ or “new paragraph “.
Use a professional external microphone. The default microphone on your MacBook will work fine for most users. However, if you are having issues with your dictation results, you can try using an external microphone like the( Amazon link) Blue Yeti ($99+) .

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Stop Using Your Hands to Type on a Mac. Use Your Voice Instead

You don't need your fingers to write an essay in Microsoft Word or send a response on Facebook.

Use this simple trick to more easily input text on your Mac.

I hardly ever use Siri on my iPhone , but boy, oh boy, do I take advantage on my Mac .

With just my voice I can quickly search through hundreds of documents for a single file or check for free disk space if I'm running out of storage, but the intelligent personal assistant does have its limitations. Conveniently, Mac has another voice feature that fills in some of the holes that Siri leaves behind -- including voice typing.

The tool, known as Dictation, lets you use your voice to type pretty much anywhere on your computer -- which Siri can't do. Siri does have a voice-to-text feature, but it only works with native applications like Mail and Messages. Dictation, on the other hand, works in any app or service on your Mac, meaning you could write an essay in Microsoft Word or leave a comment on YouTube in Safari -- with only your voice.

If you're always multitasking and need something to help you write up long emails or leave quick comments, use Dictation. In this guide we'll show you two different ways to enable voice dictation on your Mac: from the menu bar at the top of your screen and with a keyboard shortcut of your choice.

Use Dictation from the menu bar

The first way to use Dictation is from the menu bar at the top of your screen.

1 . To start, open up your application of choice -- such an email or word processor -- and click anywhere where you want to input text.

2 . Next, navigate to the menu bar and click Edit > Start Dictation . As soon as you do, a small microphone icon next to your cursor will appear. As you speak, you'll see the volume control in the microphone go up and down, indicating the strength of your voice. You should also see text populating the area where your cursor is, after you speak.

3 . Once you're finished dictating, click Done .

Choose a shortcut for Dictation in System Preferences.

Use Dictation with a keyboard shortcut

The second way to use Dictation is with a keyboard shortcut, but you must first enable it. To do this:

1 . Open System Preferences .

2 . Click on Keyboard .

3 . Go into the Dictation tab, then click the Shortcut dropdown.

4 . Choose any of the six options, including Press Control Key Twice (a solid choice).

The other shortcut options are: Press Fn Key Twice, Press Right Command Key Twice, Press Left Command Key Twice, Press Either Command Key Twice and Customize. If you choose Customize , you can then enter any key combination to turn on Dictation.

Finally, like in the first step, navigate to whatever app has a text field, like Gmail or Pages, click anywhere in that text field and enter the keyboard command to turn on Dictation. As you speak, text should appear.

As a Mac owner, it's difficult to get a firm grasp on every single feature the computer has to offer. Not to worry. Check out seven of the best hidden features for your Mac and 10 tips to flex your superpowers on Mac .

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Is there a way of converting voice memos to text?

I would like to record some notes with Voice Memos and transcribe that to text when the time comes.

It seems that since both are part of macOS, there must be a way of linking the two. Failing that is there an open source solution?

Using an M1 Mac Mini with macOS Ventura.

voice-dictation

3 Answers 3

There are many services, my favorite being Otter.ai .

You can use Apple Dictation to perform this task. Here is the great and detailed article on the subject:

How to transcribe audio to text using Dictation on a Mac .

Use Google Docs if you have [free] Google account.

Just open Google Docs and select Voice Typing, then start your Voice Memo. Google shall transcribe everything into text.

Official Google Docs Help for Voice Typing

I've used Just Press Record in the past on iOS, although it's also the recording app, not just for transcription. They have a macOS version too. The transcription is good.

It will import audio files from other applications also (not mp3 for some reason), and will automatically transcribe them. It records to wav, aiff or m4a, so I assume the import formats are also the same, though I can't find any docs on that.

It has a neat trick of highlighting each word as the audio plays back.

Overall a nice app!

I use Textify for this. Does the job reasonably well, but the result usually needs editing.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged macos voice-dictation voice-memo ..

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Club MacMost Exclusive: Using Text To Speech On Your Mac

One of the most useful tools on your Mac is its ability to speak text. You can use this to read text, or as a writing tool. You can use it almost anywhere.

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5 Best (TTS) Text To Speech For Mac

Whether you prefer articles read to you while you do something else or trying to grasp a new foreign language or even for specially abled students, TTS (short for text-to-speech) has proved to be very useful.

In our previous articles we saw some of the best text to speech apps for Windows and Android . And today, we take a look at some of the best TTS options available for Macs.

Table of Contents

Text To Speech For Mac

1. macos tts.

Before we get too ahead of ourselves and start downloading third party apps, it is very trivial to know that macOS itself comes with a built-in TTS and you can use it anywhere on your computer from the Notes app to any browser.

To get started, highlight or select the text which you want to be read and then right click, go to Speech and then to Start Speaking; and your Mac should start reading the text to you. It also supports a lot of other languages other than English and there are a lot of voices to choose from in all the languages. To change the language option simply go to Accessibility > Speech . Although some voices are very robotic, there are a few which aren’t and sound more like a human.

But the TTS is far from perfect; it is very basic and barebones and lacks options like pause/play, picking up from a selected word instantly and a lot more.

Quick Tip: It blew my mind and might even blow yours to know that the native TTS on Mac also supports converting your text into audio files. Just select the required text, right click and go to Services > Add to iTunes as a spoken track . The text will be converted to an audio track and added to your iTunes library.

Pros: – Built-in system wide – Lots of voice options – Converting text to iTunes track

Cons: – No Pause/Play – Have to select manually all the words to be read – No instant pickup

Verdict: Overall, the TTS that comes with macOS is very barebones without all the bells and whistles and should be perfect for somebody looking for a basic TTS experience without even buying or installing any third party software.

2. Invicta TTS

Invicta TTS is a very simple free Text To Speech app available on the Mac App Store. Once you open up the app, it presents you with a text box where you can enter or paste any text which will be then converted to speech. The app is very lightweight and minimal in nature with everything being to the point.

Although the app is very basic, unlike the built in TTS of Mac OS, it does add the option of playing or pausing the audio which becomes crucial when listening to long texts or articles. The voice settings cannot be changed but the in built voice does the job pretty good enough.

Pros: – Minimal and Light – Play/Pause Option

Cons: – Cannot read documents automatically – Supports only English

Verdict: If you need a simple and light TTS app and might be listening to long articles, Invicta TTS does the job pretty well but do remember that it can only read English.

Link: Get Invicta TTS on the App Store

Price: Free

3. Natural Reader

The next app on our list is Natural Reader which is an extremely powerful TTS software available not only on Mac OS but also on Windows, iOS, Android and even has an online reader.

The app comes in many flavours, each with its fair share of features for the price. The free version comes with basic TTS features along with the ability to read directly from file formats such as Docx, PDF, ePub and Txt. It also has a floating bar which can be used to read text while you are in other applications. The next option or the Personal version, at a steep $100, allows you to read web pages directly, converting text to audio files and syncing everything between your phone apps. There are also Professional and Ultimate versions which add OCR support and a bunch of natural voices.

Pros: – Support for file formats – Convert to audio files – Cross Platform – OCR Support

Cons: – Pricey – No instant pickup

Verdict: All the features of Natural Reader definitely come at a price and you should be able to decide whether it is a suit for you with respect to your investment in TTS, but even for a casual user the free version works really well. Overall, Natural reader is not just best text to speech software with natural voices, but since it also support PDF, it’s also a good option for those who are looking for PDF Voice Reader for macOS.

Pricing Options: Pricing for Natural Reader

Link: Download Natural Reader from here

4. Read Aloud

Read Aloud is not exactly a stand alone Mac app but instead a Chrome extension which might appeal to some people. Considering how many posts and articles are read on the internet everyday, we had to include Read Aloud.

It is completely free and once you install it, its icon will appear in the extension bar which you can now use to read any webpage or any online article, just by a single click. When it is in work, you get a play/pause button along with a forward or rewind button which can be used to advance or backtrack paragraphs. Considering it is free, the voice options are really good and feel very natural and premium.

Pros: – Great natural voice – Forward or rewind by paragraphs – Listen to webpages

Cons: – Works only on Chrome

Verdict: Suggesting Read Aloud is very straight forward; if you are someone who reads a lot on the internet and are looking for a free TTS software for that, nothing beats Read Aloud.

Link: Download Read Aloud from the Chrome Store

5. Capti Voice

Capti Voice is probably the most polished and well rounded TTS software available for the Mac and the award are only there to justify that. Starting off, Capti Voice uses your browser for the app to function instead of a stand alone Mac application. Don’t worry, you can still use it while you are offline as it stores all its data locally and personally I have had no issues.

Capti Voice has a subscription based model and even the free version has a lot to offer from various file format supports to text search while the premium versions add features like creating playlists, OCR Support and intelligent dictionary lookup. The voices offered across all the platforms are very high quality and commendable.

Quick Tip: Don’t forget to use the Chrome extension which allows you to save articles or webpages to be read later by Capti Voice.

Pros: – Cross platform with mobile apps – Create Playlists – Dictionary lookup – Shortcuts to get around

Cons: – No standalone app – Syncs only when you add to cloud storage

Verdict: Overall, Capti Voice is a really compelling app with features packed to the brim and is very similar to natural Reader but with a subscription based model. It is really the best TTS experience you can get on Mac OS.

Pricing Info: Pricing Options for Capti Voice

Link: Download Capti Voice from here

6. Honorable Mentions

CereProc has some of the most natural sounding computer speeches available on the market, which you can use to replace the default voice on your Mac (also available for other platforms). There are a lot of high quality voice packs to choose from and each costs around $35.

Zamzar is a free online service which you can use to convert your text to audio files or mp3s. Unlike the iTunes spoken track which you can use only on Apple devices, you can use it on any platform without any hassle.

Wrapping up: Best Text to Speech for Mac

So these were some of the TTS software available on the Mac and we hope we made your decision a little bit easier. If you are someone who reads mainly on the internet, Read Aloud is by far the best free option. Although a little limited, the built-in TTS feature seems to work just fine, but it can be a pain for long stretches of texts or long articles for which there is Invicta which is also free.

Natural Reader and Capti Voice both are spectacular TTS apps with a lot of plans to choose from, but I guess what it comes down to is the paying model. Natural reader is a one time purchase and should be better if you feel you will be invested in TTS for a long time whereas Capti Voice follows a subscription based model also with a one week free trial. Thanks for reading and do comment below which one is your favorite TTS app on Mac OS.

Read: Make your Devices Read Out Text, With Text to Speech

Sometimes I write. Business Enquiries: [email protected]

How to Do Text to Speech on Mac

Learn how to set up and customize your Mac's text-to-speech feature.

Text-to speech technology is transforming how we communicate and consume content—but did you know that your Mac has in-built text-to-speech capabilities?

Imagine your computer reading out documents, emails, or even your favorite web articles with just a simple command. This is the power of text-to-speech on macOS.

Let’s delve into what text-to-speech is and how to use it on your Mac. Whether you're a professional seeking efficiency, a student aiming for a better learning experience, or someone exploring accessibility options, this guide’s for you.

Setting Up Text to Speech on Your Mac

Enabling text-to-speech on your Macbook or Apple desktop is a straightforward process. Here's how you can set it up and customize it to fit your needs:

Enabling Speak Selection

First, access your Mac's System Settings and click on 'Accessibility' in the sidebar.
Within the Accessibility settings, select 'Spoken Content'.
Turn on the 'Speak selection' option. This feature allows your Mac to read out selected text or, in its absence, any text items in the current window, such as an email in Mail.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

To personalize your experience, you can set a custom keyboard shortcut for Speak selection.
Go to System Settings, then click 'Keyboard' in the sidebar.
Under Keyboard Shortcuts, choose 'Accessibility' to modify the shortcut for Speak selection. The default combination is Option-Esc, but you can change it to something that suits your workflow better.

Using the Onscreen Controller

When Speak selection is active, you have the option to display an onscreen controller.
This controller includes buttons for adjusting the speaking rate, skipping sentences, playing/pausing, and stopping the speech.
The controller is particularly handy for managing the speech in longer texts, allowing you to easily navigate and control the playback.

Highlighting Spoken Content

For visual tracking, you can set your Mac to highlight words or sentences as they are spoken.
In the Spoken Content settings, choose your preferred highlighting style and colors for both words and sentences.
This feature enhances comprehension and is useful for following along with the spoken text.

Customizing Sentence Style

You can also customize how spoken sentences are indicated, either by underlining or background color, enhancing the readability and understanding of the text.

Controller Visibility Options

Decide when the controller appears: automatically with the shortcut, always, or never. This customization ensures the controller is available according to your preference and usage patterns.

Advanced Features and Customization

Now you’ve enabled text-to-speech on your Mac, here’s how you can customize it according to your unique preferences.

Accessing Customization Options

To begin customizing text-to-speech on your Mac, open 'System Preferences' from the Apple menu and navigate to 'Accessibility.' From there, select 'Spoken Content' in the sidebar. This section houses a variety of settings that allow you to tailor the text-to-speech functionality to your specific needs.

Choosing the Right Voice

MacOS offers an extensive selection of voices, varying in gender, accents, and languages—meaning you don’t just have to settle for the default voice. Some of these voices are even available for additional download from the App Store. Use the play button to preview different voices and select the one that resonates best with you.

Adjusting Speaking Rate

The speaking rate of the text-to-speech feature is fully adjustable. You have the option to slow down the speech for clearer comprehension or speed it up to quickly absorb information. This level of control ensures the spoken content is delivered at a pace that suits your listening preferences.

Enjoying the Benefits

Customizing text-to-speech on your Mac enhances the overall user experience, whether for educational, professional, or leisure activities. By experimenting with the various settings available, you can discover the full potential of text-to-speech, making information more accessible and enjoyable for your specific needs and lifestyle.

With these customization features, your Mac becomes a more powerful and accommodating tool, bringing written content to life in a way that best suits your individual preferences and requirements.

Reasons to Choose Dedicated Text-to-Speech Software Over Mac's Built-In Functionality

While Macs have in-built text-to-speech capabilities, that doesn’t mean they’re best suited for all needs. If you’re a serious content creator looking for natural-sounding voices (e.g. if you create podcasts or Youtube videos), then you should use dedicated text-to-speech software like ElevenLabs.

Here’s why.

Advanced Voice Quality and Naturalness

Dedicated text-to-speech software, such as ElevenLabs , offers voices that are remarkably natural and human-like. This advanced voice quality and speech options significantly surpasses the often mechanical-sounding tones of Mac's built-in system voices. Users experience a more engaging and pleasant listening experience, making the software ideal for a wide range of applications.

Greater Customization and Control

Specialized text-to-speech programs provide extensive customization options. Users can choose from a diverse array of voice types and have greater control over speech modulation and patterns. This level of customization, which is not available in Mac’s in-built functionality, allows for a tailored auditory experience to suit specific preferences and needs.

Enhanced Language and Accent Options

Unlike the limited language and accent options in Mac's system, dedicated text-to-speech software offers a broad selection. This variety caters to a global audience, making it an invaluable tool for users who require content in multiple languages and dialects. Whether you’re looking for English, Spanish, or Arabic text-to-speech options, ElevenLabs has you covered.

Superior Contextual Understanding

The advanced algorithms in specialized text-to-speech software result in a superior understanding of context and nuances in text. This leads to more accurate and contextually appropriate speech output, ensuring that the synthesized voice conveys the intended message effectively and accurately.

Reliability and Support

Dedicated text-to-speech software providers typically offer reliable performance and robust customer support—a key combination. This level of service ensures users have assistance readily available, a benefit not always matched by built-in operating system features. Some providers even have dedicated how-to tutorials. The reliability and support offered make these programs a dependable choice for professional voiceovers and personal use.

Ongoing Development and Innovation

Specialized text-to-speech (TTS) software is often at the cutting edge of technology, with ongoing development and innovation. These continuous improvements ensure users have access to the latest advancements in speech synthesis, a level of innovation that built-in systems like Mac’s may not regularly receive.

In conclusion, dedicated text-to-speech software offers numerous advantages over Mac's built-in functionality, including superior voice quality, extensive customization, diverse language options, constantly updated new voices, enhanced contextual understanding, reliable performance, and continuous innovation. These benefits make it an ideal choice for users seeking an advanced, adaptable, and high-quality text-to-speech experience.

Final Thoughts

Choosing ElevenLabs' dedicated text-to-speech software over Mac's built-in functionality offers a vastly superior experience.

ElevenLabs provides exceptionally natural and engaging voices, extensive customization options, and a broad range of languages and accents. Its advanced algorithms ensure accurate contextual understanding and pronunciation, enhancing the effectiveness of the spoken word.

Coupled with reliable performance, continuous innovation, and strong customer support, ElevenLabs represents a significant upgrade in quality and versatility. It’s the ideal choice for those seeking a more immersive, personalized, and sophisticated text-to-speech experience.

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The original Macintosh computer from 1984 could speak text in several voices. Many of those voices lived on in later Mac computers, and they are even available in modern iPhone and iPad devices.

Apple created the MacinTalk text-to-speech engine for the original Macintosh, as a demonstration of the computer’s power and versatility. It was even shown off during the Mac’s initial reveal event —after the computer was taken out of a carrying bag by Steve Jobs, the Mac said, “Hello, I’m Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag.” It then made a joke about IBM mainframes and how you should “never trust a computer you can’t lift.”

MacinTalk continued to be improved over the years, and eventually became a built-in feature in later versions of the Mac operating system. MacinTalk 3 included several voices approximating a person (or as close as you could get at the time), including Fred, Rocko, Reed, Junior, Albert, Grandpa, Kathy, and Sandy.

There were also several silly voices, like the laughing Jester, the robot-like Zarvox and Trinoids, and Whisper. The Good News, Bad News, and Bells voices were more like an autotune synthesizer than text-to-speech.

MacinTalk voices have been used by many people over the years, and they have likely stuck around to prevent people from losing their preferred voice. Stephen Hawking used an early Speech Plus synthesizer for his voice , which was made by some of the same engineers who developed DECtalk and MacinTalk, and he avoided changing the voice for the rest of his life. Even though Hawking’s voice wasn’t using MacinTalk specifically, it was nearly identical to Apple’s “Fred” voice.

The voices have also been used in some movies and TV shows over the years. Auto, the wheel-shaped automatic pilot from Pixar’s WALL-E , is voiced by MacinTalk (either the Reed or Ralph voice, it’s hard to tell).

How to Try the Old Voices

Most of the old MacinTalk voices have carried over to Apple’s modern platforms, including every iPhone and iPad. You can try them out by opening the Settings app and navigating to Accessibility > Live Speech. Turn on Live Speech if you haven’t already, then tap the menu for “English (US)” voices to see a full list.

List of text-to-speech voices on an iPhone.

The original Fred voice used in the Macintosh reveal event is still available, as well as Junior, Albert, Kathy, Bahh, Zarvox, Whisper, Jester, and others. A few are missing, including Rocko and Reed. Tap a voice to open its menu, where you can download the voice if it’s not already available.

With a voice selected, press your power button three times to open the Live Speech menu. You can then type whatever you want, and press Send on the keyboard to say it in the selected voice.

Typing a message for speech on an iPhone.

Unfortunately, you can’t use any of the classic MacinTalk voices for Siri. You can also use them for the Spoken Content feature (also in the Accessibility settings), which adds a “Speak” button when you select text in most applications.

IMAGES

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How to Use Text To Speech on Mac
Speech To Text on Mac
Mac OS Text to Speech
Text To Speech Mac Desktop App
Guide to Set Speech to Text on Mac Effortlessly [Detailed!]

COMMENTS

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How to transcribe audio to text using Dictation on a Mac

Bonus: Routing audio internally on the Mac with Loopback

Alternative: Welder (or other online services)

Further reading

Dictation on Mac: How to Use Voice-to-Text Typing

What is Dictation and how does it work?

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Change the Dictation Shortcut

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Choose a Different Microphone to Use

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