Open a page in the app you want to dictate into such as Apple Pages.

To start dictating on your Mac follow these instructions: Once you’ve activated dictation, you can then dictate on your Mac in any app that supports it such as Apple Pages. MacOS Dictation will automatically switch itself off if it doesn’t detect any voice for 30 seconds but you can also turn off dictation manually on your Mac by going to Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation and click Off. If it’s set to Automatic, your Mac will choose the microphone that’s most frequently used for audio recordings on your Mac which may or may not be an external microphone.

If you have an external microphone, you can also use it with Dictation in macOS by clicking below the Microphone icon and choose the microphone that’s connected to your Mac.

You can also dictate in multiple languages and switch languages by clicking the current language in the feedback window and then switching the language. You can also click on Remove a language by clicking Customize and deselecting languages that are not needed.

On M1 Macs, the selection of languages may not be as wide as on Intel Macs.

If you want to change the language for dictation on your Mac click on the Language pop-up menu to choose a language and dialect.

If you do allow your Mac to save and share recordings of your dictations, you can also delete your Siri dictation history by going to System Preferences > Siri and selecting Delete Siri and Dictation History. If you want to allow this select Share Audio Recordings but if you’re not comfortable with Apple using your dictations for improving the quality of Siri then click Not Now. You can choose whether you want to allow Apple and Siri to save your recordings so that it can improve how Siri recognizes your voice by clicking on About Dictation and Privacy. To improve the quality of Dictation voice recognition, you may be asked if you want to share your recordings with Apple. Go to the Apple Logo in the top left of your screen and then select Preferences > Keyboard > Dictation.To turn-on dictation on a Mac, follow these instructions. Note that when Voice Control is activated, Dictation will not work on a Mac because Voice Control will take precedence. Voice Control allows you to control your Mac and instruct it to perform tasks with your voice.ĭictation on the other hand transcribes your voice-to-text on the screen in word processing applications such as Apple Pages including Microsoft Office. Firstly, it’s important to be aware that macOS Dictation is different to macOS Voice Control.

Mac dictation