Dictation software for writers on Mac

Draft at the speed you think

The hardest part of a draft is getting it down before the inner editor catches up. Speaking helps, because you can't backspace a sentence you've just said. You tell the scene the way you'd tell it to a friend, then shape it later at the keyboard.

Dictate keeps out of the way while you do it. There is no window to open and no recording app to manage. Put the cursor where the next paragraph goes, hold your key, and talk.

Any editor, including the one in your browser

Dictate doesn't care where you write. When you let go of the key, the text is pasted at your cursor: a Scrivener document, a Ulysses sheet, a Pages chapter, Word, iA Writer, or Google Docs in a browser tab. The text also stays on your clipboard, so if a field won't take the paste, press ⌘V. Nothing to install in the editor, nothing to export. (Word has its own Dictate button, online only: how it compares.)

Pauses are fine, and there is no clock

Thinking takes silence. Some dictation tools stop listening after a few seconds of quiet; Dictate listens for as long as you hold the key, however long you pause to find the next line. A paragraph per press is a good rhythm: you see what you said, then carry on.

Hesitations don't make it onto the page. "Um", "uh" and stuttered repeats are removed on your Mac as you dictate. Character names and invented words the model mishears can be fixed once with substitutions, so your protagonist is spelled the same way in chapter one and chapter thirty.

Unpublished work stays unpublished

A manuscript in progress is nobody's business yet. Dictate transcribes on your Mac's Neural Engine; the audio is discarded and nothing is uploaded, so it works in a cabin with no signal as well as at your desk. If you write in more than one language, it detects which of its 21 European languages you're speaking. The privacy page lists every connection the app makes, and what on-device dictation means explains the difference.

What it doesn't do

• No spoken commands for punctuation, paragraphs, formatting or editing. You edit at the keyboard.
• Words appear when you release the key, not one by one as you speak.
• No transcription of audio files or voice memos you recorded earlier.
• It won't rewrite your prose. It types what you said, minus the ums and stutters.

Already using the dictation built into macOS? See Apple Dictation vs Dictate.