How to dictate in Slack on a Mac

Slack's message box is a text field like any other, so Apple Dictation types into it. The steps follow Apple's Dictation guide for macOS 27, checked October 16, 2026.

1. Turn on Dictation once: Apple menu > System Settings > Keyboard, then Dictation.
2. In Slack, click into the message box of a channel, a DM or a thread.
3. Press the Microphone key, your Dictation shortcut, or choose Edit > Start Dictation, and talk.
4. Press Escape or your shortcut to stop.
5. Read it over, then press Return to send.

Say punctuation by name, like “comma” or “question mark”, and an emoji by its name, like “heart emoji”. In supported languages, Dictation adds commas and periods by itself. The full list is in our guide on how to dictate on a Mac.

In Slack on the desktop, Return sends the message and Shift+Return starts a new line. That's the trap with dictation: a long message is where you want line breaks, and a line break typed as a plain Return sends whatever you have so far.

You can swap the two. Slack's help page on the Enter key preference, checked October 16, 2026, gives these steps:

1. Click your profile picture in Slack's sidebar to open the menu.
2. Choose Preferences, then Advanced.
3. Under When writing a message, press Enter to, choose Start a new line.
4. From then on, Return adds a line and Command-Return sends.

We haven't checked what Apple's spoken “new line” does in Slack's message box. Try it in a message to yourself before you use it in a channel.

Slack's own voice feature is clips: a recorded audio or video message rather than typed text. Slack's page on recording audio and video clips says they can be up to five minutes long and work on all plans.

1. In a channel or DM, click the microphone icon in the message field to start recording.
2. Click the check mark to stop.
3. Add a note if you like, and click the Generate transcript icon to include a transcript.
4. Send it with the paper plane icon.

A clip is good when your voice is the point. When the people you write to would rather read and search your message, dictation gets you typed text instead.

We make Koi, so weigh this part with that in mind. Koi's dictation handles a few things chat boxes like Slack's need:

1. Click into Slack's message box, tap Fn + ⌥ once and talk. Words appear while you speak.
2. Want a line break? Pause, then say “new line” on its own. Koi types it as Shift+Return, so Slack adds a line instead of sending.
3. Tap the keys again to stop, or just go quiet and it stops by itself.
4. Read it, then press Return yourself to send. Koi types the words; sending is still your key.

• No full stop at the end. With Tidy what I say on, chat apps like Slack get no full stop at the end of what you said, the way people type there, and the ums and stammers go. It's done on the Mac, a switch in Settings, under Dictation.
• Names spelled right. As you start, the names and terms in the front window, like a teammate's name in the thread, are read on the Mac and told to the speech model. Never sent, never kept.
• “Clear all”, said on its own, takes back what that dictation wrote and nothing that was there before.
• Your own words. Product names and jargon go in Your words, and a word you fix right after Koi typed it is added by itself.

The speech model runs on your Mac, so what you dictate into Slack isn't sent anywhere to be turned into text: dictation never goes online. More on the dictation page, and on teaching Koi your team's names in adding words.

• It doesn't format Slack messages. A spoken list stays sentences: no bullets, bold or code blocks.
• We haven't tested every Slack setup, such as one with the Enter key set to start a new line. Send a few messages to yourself first.
• It's Mac only, so it won't help in Slack on your phone.
• It needs a paid plan, 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 Slack but works in Notes, our guide to fixing Mac dictation has a section on one app only. Writing code reviews and prompts too? See voice coding on a Mac.