How to dictate in Obsidian on a Mac

Obsidian's editor is a text field like any other, so the Mac's own Dictation types straight into a note. The steps follow Apple's Dictation guide for macOS 27, checked October 21, 2026.

1. Turn on Dictation once: Apple menu > System Settings > Keyboard, then turn on Dictation and click Enable.
2. In Obsidian, open a note and click where the words should go.
3. Press the Microphone key, your Dictation shortcut, or choose Edit > Start Dictation.
4. Talk when the cursor pulses or you hear the tone.
5. Press Escape or your shortcut to stop. It also stops after 30 seconds of silence.

Dictation adds commas and full stops by itself in supported languages, and takes “new line” and “new paragraph”. On a Mac with Apple silicon you can keep typing while it listens, which suits Markdown: say the sentence, type the brackets. Every command is in our guide on how to dictate on a Mac.

Not built in. What Obsidian has is Audio recorder, a core plugin that records sound into a note. Its help page, checked October 21, 2026, says:

1. Create or open a note.
2. Click the microphone icon in the ribbon. Recording starts when the icon changes colour.
3. Click it again to stop. Obsidian saves the audio file to your vault and embeds it at the end of the note.

That's a recording, not text: the help page doesn't mention transcribing it. Recordings also stay in your vault after you take them out of a note, so delete them in the File explorer if you don't want them.

We make Koi, so weigh this part with that in mind. Koi's dictation types into Obsidian wherever the cursor is, and it fits a Markdown app well:

1. Click into an Obsidian note.
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.

• Lists as Markdown. Say “First, … Second, … Third, …” and it comes out as a numbered list, a line an item, with “1.” style numbers. Say “Bullet point, …” before each item and you get lines starting with a dash. Both are plain Markdown lists.
• “New line” and “new paragraph”, said on their own after a pause, are done rather than typed. “Clear all” takes back only what that dictation wrote.
• Tidy. The ums go, a stammered word is written once, and in English “the meeting is on the 3rd, no, the 4th” keeps only the fix.
• Names spelled right. As you start, the names and terms in the front window, like the links and headings in your note, are read on the Mac and told to the speech model. Never sent, never kept.
• Your words. Add the names and jargon in your notes to Your words, up to 300, and a word you fix right after Koi typed it is added by itself.

The speech model runs on your Mac, so it works offline and nothing you dictate is sent anywhere to become text. For people who chose Obsidian because their notes are files on their own disk, that matters.

Koi keeps its own documents too: pages you dictate, recorded calls and lectures, transcribed audio files. All of them can land in Obsidian as Markdown:

• One page: open its menu and pick Copy as Markdown, then paste it into a note.
• Everything: File > Export All as Markdown, or Settings, General. Pick your vault and Koi writes a “Koi Documents” folder into it, a .md file per page, each group a folder.
• To-dos come out as Markdown checkboxes, tables as Markdown tables, equations between double dollar signs, and pictures, videos and sound in an Attachments folder beside them, linked relatively.

The export is a copy at that moment, not a sync. So a call recorded with Fn + ⌃ and written down on your Mac can end up in your vault, with its summary on top if you asked for one. More in recording calls, recording a lecture and Koi's documents.

• Type the links, say the thoughts. Double brackets and tags are quicker by hand; full sentences are quicker by voice.
• Dictate one idea per note and link them after, rather than one long voice dump.
• Write the note's title first. With a title on screen, its words are among the names Koi reads as you start.
• Prefer a page of its own? Dictate into a Koi document and export it to your vault later.

Comparing note apps? See our Notion alternative page, which has Obsidian in its table, and the voice notes apps for Mac list.

• It isn't an Obsidian plugin. It types where your cursor is and doesn't know about links, tags or properties.
• The Markdown export is a one-time copy, not a live sync with your vault.
• We haven't tested every Obsidian theme, plugin or editor mode. Try yours during the trial.
• It's Mac only, so it won't help in Obsidian on your phone.
• It's paid, and Apple Dictation is free. 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.

If dictation won't start in Obsidian, see fixing Mac dictation. Using Notion too? Read dictating in Notion.