How to voice type in WhatsApp on a Mac

WhatsApp's message box on a Mac is a text field, so the Mac's own Dictation types into it, in the WhatsApp app and in WhatsApp Web. 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 WhatsApp, open the chat and click into the message box.
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.

Apple Dictation adds commas and full stops by itself in supported languages, so a quick reply often ends with a full stop people don't use in chat. You can turn Auto-punctuation off in Keyboard settings, but then it's off everywhere. Say an emoji by name, like “heart emoji”, and Dictation types it. More in our guide on how to dictate on a Mac.

In WhatsApp on a Mac, Return sends the message and Shift-Return adds a line. With dictation, that's the thing to watch: a line break that arrives as a plain Return sends whatever you've said so far. Try Apple's spoken “new line” in a chat with yourself first, or keep each message to one paragraph and add breaks with Shift-Return by hand.

WhatsApp's own voice feature is the voice message: you record your voice and send the recording, not text. From a computer, WhatsApp's help says:

1. Open the chat and click the microphone icon.
2. Talk into your Mac's microphone. Pause with the pause icon if you need to, and click the microphone again to carry on.
3. Play it back first if you like, or click the trash icon to throw it away.
4. Click Send.

The steps are from WhatsApp's page on previewing a voice message. For messages you receive, WhatsApp announced voice message transcripts in November 2024, made on your device, under Settings, Chats. Its steps are for phones, and we couldn't confirm the feature in the Mac app.

A voice message is right when your voice is the point. When people would rather read, skim or search your reply, dictation gets you typed text.

We make Koi, so weigh this part with that in mind. Koi's dictation handles the things a chat box needs:

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

• No full stop at the end. The WhatsApp app is one of the chat apps where Koi leaves the last full stop off, the way people text, while Mail and Word keep theirs. In WhatsApp Web the app is your browser, which keeps it, unless you set the browser to Casual in Settings, under Dictation.
• No ums. They go, a stammered word is written once, and in English “see you at 7, no, 8” comes out as “see you at 8”.
• Names spelled right. As you start, the names in the front window, like the contact or group you're writing to, are read on the Mac and told to the speech model. Never sent, never kept.
• Many languages. Koi's speech models cover 100 languages between them, and with Whisper Base, Whisper Small or Granite Speech picked, you can speak your language and have it typed in English.
• Snippets. Save “my address” or “bank details for rent” once, and say the phrase while dictating to type the text.
• “Clear all”, on its own, takes back what that dictation wrote, and nothing that was there before.

The speech model runs on your Mac, so what you dictate into a chat isn't sent anywhere to become text. Typing in English from another language is covered in speaking any language and typing English.

• One thought per message. Dictate it, read it, send it, then the next. Chats read better in short messages than in one long block.
• Read names and numbers before you send. They're what dictation gets wrong most, and a wrong time in a group chat is worse than a typo.
• Write in the language of the chat. Koi's built-in model works out which of its 25 European languages you're speaking, so you can switch between chats without changing a setting.
• Prefer to talk it through? Send a voice message instead, and save dictation for what people need to read later.

Koi also records a WhatsApp call on your Mac, You and Them written down apart, with no bot. Tap Fn + ⌃, pick Online call, and you get a page with the transcript when you stop. The steps are in recording a WhatsApp call on a Mac, and always tell the other person you're recording.

• It doesn't send. Press Return yourself.
• No emoji by name, and no WhatsApp formatting like bold.
• It's Mac only, so it won't help in WhatsApp on your phone.
• We haven't tested WhatsApp Web in every browser. Send a few messages to yourself first.
• 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.

Dictation dead in WhatsApp but fine in Notes? See fixing Mac dictation. For work chat, read dictating in Slack.