Guide · Voice typing

Voice typing on a Mac: type any app by speaking

Last updated: 2026-10-29

Why typing by voice is worth it

Most people speak faster than they type. In a 2016 Stanford University study, people entered text about three times faster by speaking than by typing on a phone keyboard, with 20% fewer errors in English (Stanford News). That study was done on phones, so on a Mac with a full keyboard the gap is smaller, but it is still there for anyone who isn't a very fast typist. A large 2018 study of 168,000 volunteers measured an average typing speed of 52 words per minute (Dhakal et al., CHI 2018); comfortable speech is well above that.

Speed is only part of it. Typing by voice also helps when:

• you write long e-mails, reports or messages every day and the keyboard has become the slow part of your work,
• you write long prompts to ChatGPT, Claude or a coding assistant and want to explain the whole context,
• your wrists or fingers get tired after a long day at the keyboard,
• you think better out loud than in front of a blank text box.

Want a number for your own day? The typing time calculator shows how many minutes you spend at the keyboard, and the typing vs speaking test measures your own speeds.

Option 1: the Mac's built-in dictation

macOS has free dictation. Turn it on in System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation, then press the dictation shortcut in a text field and speak. It is a good choice for an occasional short sentence. It is less suited to long texts: you often have to say punctuation out loud, there is no personal dictionary for your names and terms, and it does not change its style between a chat and a formal e-mail. A detailed comparison is in Mac dictation vs Corvi.

Option 2: a dictation app

Dedicated dictation apps add a layer of AI clean-up on top of speech recognition: they add punctuation, remove filler words ("um", "you know") and fix obvious slips. The main ones on the Mac are Wispr Flow, Superwhisper and Corvi. They differ in which devices they run on, whether they work offline, and what else they do; see our honest comparison with Wispr Flow and with Superwhisper.

How voice typing works in Corvi

1. Click into any text field: Mail, Slack, Notion, Google Docs, a browser form, Claude or ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code.
2. Hold the Fn key and speak naturally. You don't need to say "comma" or "period".
3. Release the key. Your words appear where the cursor is, with punctuation.

For longer stretches, press Fn with Command for hands-free dictation, so you don't have to hold the key.

Corvi also has tools for people who dictate every day:

• Personal dictionary: teach it names, product terms and abbreviations once; it spells them right every time.
• Voice snippets: say "my address" or "my sign-off" and the full text is typed.
• Writing style per app: casual in chat, formal in e-mail.
• 35 languages: dictate in any of them; Corvi follows the language you speak.

The same Fn key does two more things: tap it once and Corvi summarizes what's on your screen aloud; double-tap it to ask a spoken question about it. That's why Corvi is a voice typing and read-aloud app, not only a dictation tool.

What happens to your voice

Your speech is turned into text on your Mac by a local Whisper model in most languages. For punctuation and clean-up, the text then goes to an AI service over an encrypted connection; Corvi's servers don't keep it. The microphone is on only while you hold the key, and silent recordings are never sent anywhere. Details are in privacy, in plain words.

Tips for better dictation

• Speak in whole thoughts. Say a full sentence, then pause. Clean-up works better with complete sentences than with fragments.
• Teach the dictionary early. Add your colleagues' names, your product names and the jargon of your field on day one.
• Use snippets for anything you type twice. Addresses, links, standard replies.
• Read it once before you send. Speech recognition is very good but not perfect; a five-second look catches the rare wrong word.
• Use a decent microphone in noisy places. The built-in Mac microphone works well in a quiet room; in an open office a headset helps.

Frequently asked questions

Does voice typing work in every app?

With Corvi, yes: it types wherever there is a cursor, including browsers, Mail, Slack, Notion, Word, Google Docs and code editors.

Do I need to say punctuation out loud?

No. Corvi adds commas, periods and question marks itself.

Which Macs does Corvi run on?

Every Mac on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, with Apple silicon or Intel.

Does it work without the internet?

In most languages, turning your speech into text happens on your Mac. Punctuation, clean-up and summaries need a connection.

Is it free?

Corvi is free during early access, with every feature included. Corvi Pro is coming; its price hasn't been announced.

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