Guide
Speech to text on Mac
A Mac can turn speech into text out of the box. Whether that is enough depends on one question: do you need to keep what you said, or only the text?
The short answer
For quick live typing, use the Dictation built into macOS: switch it on in System Settings > Keyboard, then press your Dictation shortcut in any text field. The dictation guide walks through every step.
If you want each dictation saved as audio next to its transcript, a choice of speech models, or names spelled your way every time, use a dictation app. Talki is one: it saves the original recording first and only then turns it into text.
Built-in Dictation
- Types as you speak, into the field where your cursor is.
- Free, no installation.
- Keeps no recording, so a word it misheard cannot be checked against what you said.
Talki
- Start from any app with ⌘ ⇧ Space, or hold Fn to talk in the direct download.
- The original recording is saved to your library before any model runs. A failed transcription keeps the audio and offers a retry with another model.
- Choose the engine: Apple on-device recognition (free; Talki requests on-device only), or your own OpenRouter key with the speech model you pick.
- A personal dictionary of up to 1,000 terms fixes names and jargon in the edited text. The recording and the original transcript stay untouched.
- The direct download pastes the text into the field you started from; the Mac App Store edition copies it for you to paste.
- Each recording runs up to 5 minutes. Add another recording to the same note to keep going.
Talki needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later. The direct download is for Apple silicon Macs.
How to choose
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| A sentence typed into a message, nothing kept | Built-in Dictation |
| The audio kept beside the text, to replay or re-run later | Talki |
| One spelling for product names and people | Talki's personal dictionary |
| Speech that never leaves your Mac | Built-in Dictation where macOS says it runs on device, or Talki with Apple on-device recognition |
With an OpenRouter key, your audio is sent to OpenRouter and the model you chose, and their policies apply.
Next step
Get Talki, or read what Talki does first. If dictation itself stops working, the troubleshooting checklist covers the usual causes.