Voice typing on Mac
Voice typing on Mac, done properly
Typing slowly, sore wrists, or ideas moving faster than your fingers? On a Mac you can simply say an email, a document or a prompt. Here are the two ways to do it: built-in Dictation, and the AI dictation app TypeHey.
Mac & Windows · 1 hour free every month · no card needed
Option 1: built-in macOS Dictation
Turn it on in System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation, then press Fn (🌐) twice or the microphone key and start talking. It’s free and built in.
The catch: every “um” and every restart ends up in the text, so you clean up afterwards. It doesn’t break things into paragraphs or lists, and mixing languages trips it up. Fine for a sentence here and there.
Option 2: TypeHey — hold, talk, let go
TypeHey is an AI dictation app for Mac and Windows. Hold right ⌥ (Option), talk, let go — usually about a second later, clean text lands at your cursor, in any app: mail, chat, Notion, Word, your browser or your code editor.
The big difference is the cleanup: filler words are removed, restarts are resolved to what you meant, punctuation is added, “first… second…” becomes a list, and English terms in a Chinese sentence stay exactly as you said them.
Get started in three steps
Download and install
From the website, or with Homebrew: brew install --cask xflow-lab/typehey/typehey. macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon or Intel.
Allow microphone and accessibility
The microphone to hear you, accessibility to type into whatever field you’re in.
Hold right ⌥ and talk
Sign in and go. 1 hour free every month, and only the time you actually speak counts.
Built-in Dictation vs TypeHey
| macOS Dictation | TypeHey | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | 1 hour free monthly, then pay per hour |
| Removes fillers and restarts | No | Yes |
| Paragraphs and lists | No | Yes |
| Mixed Chinese and English | Often struggles | Keeps terms as spoken |
| One line → full email | No | Expand style |
| Control your Mac by voice | No | Hold left ⌥: brightness, volume, Terminal… |
FAQ
Isn’t built-in Dictation enough?
For a sentence or two, yes. For anything longer you end up deleting fillers and restarts by hand — that’s the step TypeHey saves.
Are recordings stored?
No. Audio is discarded after recognition; the server only keeps how long you spoke, for billing — not the audio or the text.
Which apps does it work in?
Any text field: chat apps, email, Notion, Word, your browser, VS Code, Terminal.
Related guides
Voice typing on Windows, without the cleanup
How to type with your voice on Windows 10 and 11: the built-in Win + H voice typing, and TypeHey — hold right Ctrl, talk, and clean, formatted text lands at your cursor. 1 hour free every month.
Read ›Voice to textVoice to text that actually reads well
Want voice to text as you speak? With TypeHey you hold a key and talk; when you let go, your speech is turned into clean text — fillers removed, mistakes fixed, lists formatted — right at your cursor.
Read ›Coding by voiceTalk to Claude Code instead of typing
Prompt Claude Code, Codex and Cursor by voice: hold a key, explain the context and requirements in one go, and TypeHey turns it into a clean prompt — and in the terminal it even presses Enter after a short countdown.
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