Dictation and AI Writing
Dictation is free and runs on your Mac. Hold the Dictation hotkey, speak, and release. Super Voice Mode writes the result into the app you are using.
What happens after you speak
Section titled “What happens after you speak”- Super Voice Mode records from your selected microphone.
- Voice activity detection removes leading and trailing silence.
- An on-device speech model creates a transcript.
- The Dictionary applies exact word, phrase, or snippet replacements.
- Optional AI Correction improves punctuation, capitalization, and obvious transcription errors on your Mac.
- The final text is pasted at the cursor.
If a custom Dictionary trigger matches your whole dictation, its replacement is pasted exactly and skips later cleanup. This preserves code, structured text, line breaks, indentation, capitalization, and punctuation.
Help Vocabulary recognize the words that matter
Section titled “Help Vocabulary recognize the words that matter”Open Dashboard → Vocabulary to add names, acronyms, product names, and specialist spellings. Saved terms can guide speech recognition while you speak and help optional AI Correction keep the wording you chose.
Vocabulary can also use uncommon words near your cursor for the current dictation. This helps when a person’s name, project, or technical term is already visible in the document or conversation. Nearby context stays on your Mac, is not saved, and is skipped in sensitive apps and protected fields.
Choose a speech model
Section titled “Choose a speech model”Open Settings → Models:
- Parakeet is fastest for English and European languages.
- Whisper large-v3-turbo covers 99 languages and can translate speech to English. It uses more storage and can take longer.
Changing the model triggers a reload. The first load can be slower while macOS prepares the model.
Turn AI Correction on or off
Section titled “Turn AI Correction on or off”Open Dashboard → AI Writing. AI Correction is optional and free.
Turn it on when you want punctuation, capitalization, and contextual cleanup. Turn it off when you want a more literal transcript. The Dictionary continues to work either way.
Correct yourself while speaking
Section titled “Correct yourself while speaking”You do not need to restart a dictation when you say the wrong word. With AI Correction on, say a repair phrase followed by the replacement. Super Voice Mode removes the nearby wrong fragment and keeps what you meant to say.
| What you say | What gets written |
|---|---|
| “Schedule it for Thursday, I mean Friday.” | “Schedule it for Friday.” |
| “Send the draft to the finance team, scratch that, the product team.” | “Send the draft to the product team.” |
| “The meeting starts at four, actually no, five.” | “The meeting starts at five.” |
| “Ask the design team—no wait—the research team to review it.” | “Ask the research team to review it.” |
Recognized repair phrases include I mean, I meant, no wait, wait no, actually no, sorry, rather, correction, and scratch that. Super Voice Mode treats them as edits only when they correct nearby speech. Literal phrases such as “I mean it,” “what I mean is,” “I actually like it,” and “I’m sorry” remain ordinary text.
Use “scratch that” to discard or undo
Section titled “Use “scratch that” to discard or undo”“Scratch that” also works as a direct dictation command:
- End the current recording with scratch that and no replacement to discard that recording instead of pasting it.
- Say scratch that by itself in the next recording to send Command-Z to the focused app and undo the previous paste.
- Scrap that, never mind, undo that, and undo this are built-in alternatives.
Undo is sent to the app that is focused at that moment. Keep the original destination focused if you want to remove the text you just dictated.
Rewrite selected text
Section titled “Rewrite selected text”AI Writing can transform text that already exists in another app:
- Select the text.
- Hold the AI Writing hotkey.
- Say what you want changed, such as “make this more concise.”
- Release the hotkey.
The rewritten text replaces the selection. The processing is on-device and free.
Rich text, Markdown, and terminals
Section titled “Rich text, Markdown, and terminals”Super Voice Mode adapts corrected output to the destination. Rich-text editors can receive formatted content, Markdown editors receive Markdown source, and terminals receive readable plain text. Exact whole-dictation Dictionary snippets remain verbatim.
Pro tips
Section titled “Pro tips”- Focus the destination first. The paste follows the app focused when you release the hotkey.
- Use short pauses naturally. You do not need to dictate punctuation commands for ordinary prose.
- Correct yourself without restarting. Say “I mean” or another repair phrase, then continue with the replacement while AI Correction is on.
- Undo hands-free. Say “scratch that” by itself after a paste, while the same destination remains focused.
- Use the Dictionary for repeatable fixes. AI Correction is contextual; Dictionary replacements are exact.
- Use Parakeet for speed and Whisper for broader language coverage. Change models only when the tradeoff helps your work.
- Create exact snippets for structured text. A whole-dictation Dictionary trigger can paste templates, prompts, or code without cleanup.