Voice coding on a Mac: dictate into Cursor, VS Code and Terminal

Talk the parts that are words, and type the parts that are symbols. Voice is good at prose: a long prompt for a coding agent, a comment that explains why, a commit message, a pull request description, a bug report. It's slow at syntax. Saying “open brace” and “underscore” works, but for brackets and variable names your keyboard is usually quicker.

So the setup that matters is simple: a dictation tool that types wherever your cursor is, in the editor, the agent's chat box and the terminal. Here are the free ways first, then where a dictation app helps. Everything about other tools comes from their own pages, checked October 16, 2026.

Apple says Dictation works anywhere you can type, so you can use it in Cursor, VS Code, Xcode and Terminal with nothing to install. The steps follow Apple's Dictation guide for macOS 27.

1. Turn on Dictation in System Settings > Keyboard, and note the shortcut under Dictation.
2. Click into the editor, the agent's prompt box or the terminal, so the cursor is where the words should go.
3. Press the Microphone key, your Dictation shortcut, or choose Edit > Start Dictation, and talk.
4. Press Escape or the shortcut to stop, then read what it typed.

Apple's list of dictation commands has the symbols coders need: “open parenthesis”, “open brace”, “underscore”, “forward slash”, “equal sign” and more. “No space on” runs the next phrase together and “no space off” ends it; “all caps” capitalizes the next word. Our how to dictate on a Mac guide has the full cheat sheet.

Microsoft makes a free extension for it, VS Code Speech. Its Marketplace page says it adds speech to text inside VS Code, for chat or for dictating straight into the editor, in 26 languages, and that your voice is processed on your computer with no internet needed.

1. In VS Code, open Extensions, search for VS Code Speech and install the one from Microsoft.
2. Click into a file where the words should go.
3. Press Command-Option-V to start dictating into the editor, and talk.

It only works inside VS Code. For the terminal next to it, a browser or Slack, you're back to Apple Dictation or another app.

Yes. Cursor's 2.0 release, on October 29, 2025, added Voice Mode: in Cursor's words, a way to “control Agent with your voice” using built-in speech to text, with custom keywords you can set in settings to start the agent running. Look for the microphone on the Agent's input.

Cursor describes it as a way to talk to Agent. For anything else in Cursor, like a comment in a file or a command in its terminal, use system dictation: Apple Dictation, or an app like the one below.

Yes. A terminal is a place you can type, so Apple Dictation types into it. Claude Code runs in your terminal, so you dictate a prompt for it the same way you would anything else in Terminal: click into the window, start dictation, talk, stop.

Two habits keep it safe:

• Press Return yourself. At a shell prompt, Return runs whatever is typed, so read a dictated command before you run it.
• Say the whole prompt as one paragraph. We haven't checked what a spoken new line does in every terminal and every tool, and a line break can be read as Return. Add line breaks by hand if you need them.

If dictation won't start in Terminal at all, the cause is usually the shortcut or the microphone, not Terminal. Our guide to fixing Mac dictation goes through them.

We make Koi, so weigh this part with that in mind. Its dictation types in any app: tap Fn + ⌥ once in Cursor, VS Code, Terminal or the browser, talk, and the words land where your cursor is. Tap again to stop, or go quiet and it stops by itself. Words appear while you speak.

• Tidy what I say. The ums and stammers go, and in chat apps and code tools, Cursor and Terminal among them, there's no full stop at the end. It's done on the Mac, and it's a switch in Settings, under Dictation.
• The words on your screen. As you start, the names and terms in the front window are read on the Mac and told to the speech model, so a name that's on screen has a better chance of coming out spelled the way it's written. Never sent, never kept.
• Your words. Add the library names, product names and jargon you say, and a word you fix right after Koi typed it is added by itself.
• “New line” on its own, after a pause, goes in as Shift+Return, so a chat box adds a line instead of sending. “Clear all” takes back what that dictation wrote, and nothing else.
• The speech model runs on your Mac, so dictation never goes online. That's worth knowing when the code is under NDA.

The other half of Koi is the assistant. Tap Fn + ⌘ and ask “what does this error mean?”, and Koi looks at your screen and answers out loud. That part uses cloud AI models: your voice and a picture of the screen go to the model provider during the call. Koi runs on macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. For the words, see our guide to adding words to Mac dictation, and for chat, dictating in Slack.

• It isn't hands-free voice control. If you need to write and move around code entirely by voice, look at Talon, which runs on Mac, Windows and Linux and is built on spoken commands.
• It doesn't speak code for you. Koi's dictation has three commands of its own, new line, new paragraph and clear all, and no spoken list of symbols like Apple's.
• No per-app modes, custom prompts, CLI or MCP for dictation. Aqua Voice, for one, lists a CLI and MCP on its site.
• We haven't tested every editor and terminal. Leaving off the full stop and typing a new line as Shift+Return are how Koi is built to work, so try your own editor and terminal 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.

If all you want is free dictation in one editor, VS Code Speech or Apple Dictation may be enough. Our list of the best dictation apps for Mac covers the paid options, and Koi's pricing has what each plan includes.