Dictation and read-aloud on a Mac: a setup guide

A Mac can do both halves on its own: Dictation types what you say, and Speak selection reads text back to you. Here's the setup, using only what's built in:

1. Turn on Dictation: open System Settings, then Keyboard, and turn on Dictation. Click in any text field, press the Microphone key or the Dictation shortcut, and talk.
2. Turn on reading aloud: open System Settings, then Accessibility, then Read & Speak, and turn on Speak selection. Older versions of macOS call this panel Spoken Content.
3. Select any text, in any app, and press Option-Esc to hear it. The Highlight content menu in the same panel lights up each word or sentence as it's read.
4. If Dictation stops too soon, gets names wrong or doesn't work offline on your Mac, add a dictation app. Koi, below, is one.

This guide describes what these tools do. It isn't advice about dyslexia, and Koi isn't made for dyslexia or tested as a support for it. For that, talk to a specialist, or to your school's or employer's accessibility office.

We make Koi, so read the Koi part with that in mind. Apple details come from Apple's own guides, checked October 16, 2026.

Apple Dictation is free and already on your Mac. Per Apple's guide, it adds punctuation for you in supported languages, takes “new line” and “new paragraph”, and on Apple silicon lets you keep typing while you dictate. Words it isn't sure of get a blue underline, so you know what to check. There's no time limit, but it stops after 30 seconds of silence.

Where it runs depends on your Mac. Apple's feature page lists 48 languages and regions that work on the device once their speech models download. On an Intel Mac, Apple's guide for macOS Sonoma says what you say is sent to Apple to process. And on macOS 27, Apple's more polished dictation needs an M3 or later Mac with at least 12 GB of memory, in English.

What it doesn't have is a list of your own words: there's no way to teach it a name it keeps getting wrong. If Dictation isn't working at all, our guide to fixing Mac dictation covers the usual causes.

Listening is a quick way to catch a word that came out wrong, whether you typed it or dictated it. With Speak selection on, select a sentence, a paragraph or a whole page and press Option-Esc. Press it again to stop. The steps are in Apple's guide to having your Mac speak text.

In the same panel you can change the shortcut and set Highlight content to words, sentences or both, so you can follow along on the screen. While your Mac is speaking, a small controller on screen changes the speaking rate.

Koi is a Mac app that types what you say in any app. Tap Fn + ⌥, talk, and tap again or just stop talking. A few things it does are worth knowing if you write mostly by talking:

• Words appear while you speak, so you can see each sentence land. If you'd rather not watch, a setting types it all at once when you finish.
• The ums and uhs go, and a little word said twice is written once.
• Names and terms on your screen are read on your Mac as you start, so a name in the email you're answering comes out spelled right.
• You can keep a list of your own words, up to 300. Fix a word Koi typed while it's still in the field, and Koi adds it to the list by itself.
• Say “new line” or “new paragraph” on its own and it does that. Say “clear all” and it takes back what that dictation wrote.
• It works offline on any Mac it runs on, Intel included, in 57 languages, and it's unlimited on every plan.
• Speak any language and it can type it in English instead.

Koi can also change text for you. Select a paragraph, tap Fn + ⌘, and say “fix the grammar” or “make it shorter”. The changed words are highlighted so you can see what moved, and ⌘Z takes it back. That part uses Koi's AI, which is online; dictation itself never leaves your Mac. More on Koi's dictation.

The catch: Koi is Mac only (macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel) and needs an account and a paid plan. There's no free plan: Pro is $20 a month after a 3-day trial that needs a card. It doesn't read text aloud itself, so pair it with Speak selection.

Names, course terms and brand names are where dictation often slips. Apple Dictation has no word list. Apple's Voice Control, in Accessibility settings, does: its custom vocabulary takes up to 1,000 terms, and you can import them from a text file. Voice Control is built for running the whole Mac by voice, so it does a lot more than type.

In Koi, the list is in Settings, under Dictation, and fixes add to it as you go. Other dictation apps have dictionaries too; our list of the best dictation apps for Mac says which, and our Apple Dictation alternatives page compares the ones that go furthest past the built-in one.

From Apple's guides and Koi's own app, checked October 16, 2026.

1. Talk the first draft without stopping to fix anything. Getting it all down comes first.
2. Read it back with Speak selection, and mark what sounds wrong.
3. Fix those parts by typing, or select one and dictate it again.
4. For a final pass, have the whole thing read aloud once more.

Try it on something short first, like an email. Like any new way of writing, it takes a little practice.

If you're a student, your school's accessibility or disability office can tell you which tools it supports and whether dictation is allowed in exams. At work, the same goes for IT: some companies limit which apps can use the microphone. A tool that runs on the Mac, like Apple Dictation on Apple silicon or Koi, keeps your voice off anyone's server, which can make that conversation easier.