How to dictate in Cursor on a Mac

Yes, for the Agent. Cursor's prompting docs, checked October 21, 2026, say to click the microphone icon in the chat input to dictate your prompt instead of typing it, and to review the transcription before you send.

1. Open the Agent's chat input.
2. Click the microphone icon, or in the Agents Window press and hold Control-M.
3. Say what you want, with the file and function names, the way you'd explain it to a colleague.
4. Stop, read the transcription, fix anything it misheard, then send.

Cursor added Voice Mode in its 2.0 release on October 29, 2025, with keywords you can set to send the prompt by voice. Its 3.1 release on April 13, 2026 upgraded voice input in the Agents Window: it records your whole clip, then transcribes it in one go for better accuracy, and shows controls while you record.

It's built for talking to the Agent. For a comment in a file, a commit message or a command in Cursor's terminal, you need system dictation.

Cursor is a Mac app with text fields like any other, so the Mac's own Dictation types into the editor, the Agent's input and the terminal panel. The steps follow Apple's Dictation guide for macOS 27.

1. Turn on Dictation once in System Settings > Keyboard.
2. Click where the words should go: a file, the Agent's input, or the terminal.
3. Press the Microphone key, your Dictation shortcut, or choose Edit > Start Dictation, and talk.
4. Press Escape or the shortcut to stop.

Apple's spoken commands include symbols like “open parenthesis”, “underscore” and “equal sign”, and “no space on” to run words together. Our how to dictate on a Mac guide has the full list. In practice, say the words and type the symbols.

We make Koi, so weigh this part with that in mind. Koi's dictation types anywhere in Cursor: the Agent's input, the inline prompt, a file or the terminal, with one key.

1. Click where the words should go.
2. Tap Fn + ⌥ once and talk. Words appear while you speak.
3. Tap the keys again to stop, or go quiet and it stops by itself.
4. Read it, then press Return yourself to send the prompt or run the command.

• No full stop at the end. Cursor is one of the code tools where Koi leaves off the final full stop, the way people type prompts and commit messages. It's a switch in Settings, under Dictation, and you can set any app to Casual or Formal.
• Your code's names, spelled right. As you start, the names and terms in the front window, like the function and file names in the open editor, are read on the Mac and told to the speech model. Never sent, never kept.
• Your words. Add library names, product names and jargon to Your words, up to 300, and a word you fix right after Koi typed it is added by itself.
• Line breaks that don't send. “New line”, said on its own after a pause, goes in as Shift-Return, the key chat inputs use for a line instead of sending. “Clear all” takes back only what that dictation wrote.
• Spoken lists. “First, … Second, … Third, …” comes out as a numbered list, a line an item, handy for a list of steps in a prompt.
• On your Mac. The speech model runs on the laptop, so dictation never goes online. Worth knowing when the code is under NDA.

If you only ever talk to Cursor's Agent, its own voice input is already there and costs nothing extra. If you also write comments, commits, Slack messages and emails, one key that works everywhere is the point of Koi.

• Say the why, not just the what. A spoken prompt is easy to make long: give the Agent the context you'd skip when typing.
• Say the names you can see. Open the file you're talking about, so Koi reads its names as you start.
• Type the symbols. Brackets, operators and regex are quicker on the keyboard.
• Read before Return. In the terminal, Return runs what's typed, and a terminal may take a line break as Return too, so don't say “new line” at a shell prompt.

The whole setup, VS Code and Terminal included, is in our voice coding on a Mac guide.

Two more things that help when you code. Tap Fn + ⌘ and ask “what does this error mean?”, and Koi looks at your screen and answers out loud. That part isn't local: your voice and, if it's on, a picture of the screen go to Koi's AI during the call.

And in Koi's Settings, Connections, AI apps, you can add Koi to Cursor's MCP settings. Cursor can then search and read your Koi documents, calls and dictations, like the spec you talked through on yesterday's call. How it works is in Koi's MCP post.

• It doesn't speak code. Koi has three commands of its own, new line, new paragraph and clear all, and no spoken list of symbols like Apple's.
• It isn't hands-free control. It types; it doesn't move around your code or run Cursor's commands.
• We haven't tested every Cursor panel and version. Try your own setup during the trial.
• It's Mac only and there's no free plan. Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once: $59 for the first 25 buyers, rising to $199. Koi runs on macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

Dictation not starting in Cursor? Our guide to fixing Mac dictation covers one app only. For team chat, see dictating in Slack.