How to use speech to text on Mac
Turn on Dictation, pick a shortcut, the voice commands worth knowing, privacy, and when an app does more. From Apple's own guide.
Blog
Blog
Notes from building Precis, a dictation app for Mac: tests on real voices, how the on-device parts work, and plain answers about the other apps.
Newest: How to use speech to text on Mac. Turn on Dictation, pick a shortcut, the voice commands worth knowing, privacy, and when an app does more. From Apple's own guide.
Wispr Flow vs Granola voice typing
Granola made voice typing free. How it compares with Wispr Flow on price, devices, privacy and styles, from both companies' own docs.
Precis vs Granola voice typing
Granola's new voice typing is free and unlimited. What it sends to the cloud, what it does better, and when Precis fits instead.
Dictate to Cursor on Mac
What Cursor's built-in voice input covers, what it leaves out, and how to talk to Cursor from comments to the terminal.
Dictate to ChatGPT on Mac
What ChatGPT's microphone button does with your recording, how dictating on your Mac compares, and the ⌥ Space clash.
Wispr Flow's free limit
Where the free plan's weekly limit sits on Mac, iPhone and Android, when it resets, and what to use instead.
Apple's on-device model and dictation
Engineering notes on getting Apple's on-device model to clean up dictation without inventing names, numbers or promises.
Dictation with an Indian English accent
Four speech engines, one Indian English voice, 14 hard phrases: which one got the fewest words wrong.
macOS 27 dictation on M1 and M2 Macs
Who gets macOS 27's better dictation, and what to use on an M1 or M2 Mac instead.
Guides
- A Wispr Flow alternative that stays on your Mac
- Is Wispr Flow private?
- Offline dictation on Mac
- Free dictation apps for Mac
- Dictate to Claude Code on Mac
- How Precis is tested
Comparing apps? The best dictation apps for Mac puts them side by side.
Try Precis free for 7 days
Hold ⌥ Space in any app and talk. No card and no account, then $39 once for 2 Macs.
Free for 7 days, no card. Needs macOS 26.5 on Apple silicon.