Voice to text on Mac, built in or with Koi

Every Mac comes with Dictation. It's free, it types anywhere you can type, and it takes a minute to turn on. These steps follow Apple's own guide, checked October 7, 2026.

1. Choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Keyboard in the sidebar.
2. Go to Dictation and turn it on, then click Enable.
3. If you're asked about sharing audio recordings with Apple, pick Share Audio Recordings or Not Now.
4. Click into a text field in any app. Press the Microphone key, your Dictation shortcut, or choose Edit > Start Dictation.
5. Talk when the cursor pulses or you hear the tone. Press Escape or the shortcut again when you're done.

Say the name of a punctuation mark, like “exclamation mark”, or “new line” and “new paragraph”, and Dictation types it. In supported languages it adds commas, periods and question marks by itself. There's no time limit, and it stops on its own after 30 seconds of silence. The shortcut lives in the same Keyboard settings, and one of the choices is pressing Fn twice.

If you press the key and nothing happens, our guide to fixing Mac dictation that isn't working goes through the usual causes one by one.

For a quick reply, Apple Dictation is hard to beat. It's already there. Longer writing is where a few things start to show:

• Where your voice goes depends on the Mac. Apple says to check Keyboard settings to see whether your dictation is processed on the Mac or sent to Siri servers. Its guide for macOS Sonoma says Intel Macs, and languages without on-device support, send dictated words to Apple.
• Working offline depends on it too. On Apple silicon, supported languages work with no internet. Otherwise Apple says you may need a connection.
• Languages are set by hand. You add them in Keyboard settings and switch with the Globe key or the language shown next to the cursor.
• Noise gets in. For a noisy room or one with echo, Apple suggests a headset microphone.

None of this matters if you dictate a line here and there. If you write long emails, tickets or notes by voice, it adds up. Our page on alternatives to Apple Dictation goes deeper into the options.

Koi is a Mac app we make, and its dictation is built for people who would rather talk than type. Tap Fn + ⌥, talk, and the words land where your cursor is: Slack, Mail, Notion, a browser, a code editor. Tap the keys again to stop, or just go quiet and it stops by itself.

• Words as you speak. They show up while you talk and tidy themselves up as you go. If you'd rather, they can arrive all at once when you finish.
• Whisper, on your Mac. Speech becomes text with OpenAI's open Whisper model, running on the laptop, so it works offline on Apple silicon and Intel alike.
• 57 languages, no switching. Whisper works out which language you're speaking by itself.
• It ignores the noise. Music, a video or a loud room don't get written down, and sound coming from the Mac itself can be ignored.
• You always know when it's listening. The island grows out of the notch while the microphone is on, says Listening, and tucks back in when you stop. Without a notch, it hangs from the top edge of the screen.
• Your keys, if you want them. Fn + ⌥ is the default, and Settings lets you change it.

Because Koi types at the cursor, there's nothing to set up per app. If you can click into a text field, you can dictate into it. macOS asks you once to allow the microphone and Accessibility, which is what lets Koi type into other apps.

It's made for people who write all day: founders answering email, developers writing tickets and prompts for AI tools, students taking notes, support people writing the tenth reply of the morning. Say it the way you'd explain it to a person, then read it over before you send.

Already talking to Koi, the assistant? Say “take dictation for me” and it hangs up and starts dictation for you.

With Koi, dictation never goes online. The speech model runs on your Mac, so your voice turns into text right there. It isn't uploaded, it isn't stored on a server, and nobody else hears it.

What you dictate is kept in Koi's history as local files on that Mac, with no sync and no cloud copy. Your settings, the model you picked and your keys stay in the app too, and Koi's server is never told.

Koi does need an account, and the account is an email address. You sign in once when you first open the app, and after that dictation doesn't need a connection. The parts of Koi that go online are talking to the assistant and, if you turn them on, notes on recorded calls, because those AI models don't fit on a laptop. That's covered on our page about an AI that can see your screen.

Koi comes with Whisper Small built in, so dictation works the moment you sign in. Two more sizes are a download away in Settings:

• Small: built in, and the place to start.
• Base: lighter than Small.
• Large v3 Turbo: the most accurate of the three.

All three understand 57 languages and run on Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 14 or later. Switch whenever you like. If dictation without internet is the main thing you're after, our list of offline dictation apps for Mac compares the apps that run on the laptop.

• Talk in whole thoughts. Dictation reads best when you say a full sentence and then pause, rather than a word at a time.
• Mind the microphone. Apple's advice for a noisy room or one with echo is a headset microphone, and a closer microphone is a good idea whichever app you use.
• Pick the right model. In Koi, move up to Large v3 Turbo when accuracy matters most, or to Base for something lighter.
• Read it before you send it. Names, jargon and rare words are the usual slips, and Koi has no custom vocabulary to teach them.
• Check that it's listening. In Koi, the island in the notch says Listening while the microphone is on. In Apple Dictation, the cursor pulses.

Yes. Dictation is unlimited on every Koi plan, Free included. It runs on your Mac, so there's nothing for us to count: no word cap, no weekly limit, no card.

The paid plans are for the rest of Koi. Pro is $20 a month and Max is $99 a month, with 20% off yearly, and Lifetime is $99 once. They add time with Koi, the assistant, and more recorded calls. Koi's pricing lists what each plan includes.

Apple's side comes from its Mac User Guide, checked October 7, 2026.

Where Apple wins: it's already on your Mac with nothing to install, and it takes spoken punctuation and emoji names. Koi needs an account, even if it's only an email. Where Koi wins: dictation stays on the Mac on every Mac it supports, it hears which language you're speaking, and it leaves background sound out.

And where Koi isn't the answer: it doesn't transcribe audio or video files, has no custom vocabulary, and has no Windows, iPhone or Android app. If you need dictation on a PC too, see how Koi compares with Wispr Flow. For the whole field, read the best dictation apps for Mac.

1. Download Koi and sign in with Google, or with a code sent to your email.
2. Allow the microphone and Accessibility when Koi asks.
3. Click into any text field, tap Fn + ⌥ and talk.
4. Go quiet, or tap the keys again, to stop.

That's all the setup there is. The defaults work out of the box, and the keys, the model and how words arrive can all be changed later.