In short: dictation (also called voice to text or speech to text) lets you talk and see your words appear as typed text, in an email, a letter or a document. Every Mac has a free version built in. VybeScript is a paid app that adds clean-up (it removes the “um”s and fixes the punctuation), works in English or Spanish, keeps your voice on your own Mac, and is sold once with no subscription.
At a glance
- What it does: you press one key, speak, press it again, and your words appear wherever you were typing: Mail, Gmail, Word, Facebook, a website form.
- No account, no cloud: VybeScript listens and types on your Mac. Your voice and your words are not sent to the internet.
- English or Spanish: dictate in either language, and the app’s menus can be in Spanish too.
- Which Mac: a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 chip or newer) and macOS 14 Sonoma or later. How to check is below.
- Price: $99 once, with every future update for the Mac app. Or try the full app free for 14 days, no card needed.
What dictation is, in plain words
Dictation means your Mac listens to you and types what you say. You don’t need to learn special commands or speak like a robot. Talk the way you would on the phone with a friend, at a normal pace. When you stop, the text is there, ready for you to read and send.
It’s easy to mix this up with “text to speech”, which is the opposite: the computer reads text out loud to you. Both are useful, but if you want to write without typing, dictation (speech to text) is the one you want.
Who finds it most helpful
- Stiff or sore hands: arthritis, tremor, or simply tired fingers. Talking takes the strain away. (See our guide to typing with arthritis.)
- Hunt-and-peck typists: if you type with two fingers, you can say a paragraph in the time it takes to type a sentence.
- Eyesight: fewer small keys to find. You speak, then read the result once, with the text as large as you like.
- Storytellers: people who have a lot to say, like a memoir, a family history or a long letter, but find typing slows their thoughts down.
- Spanish speakers: write to the family in Spanish and to the doctor or the bank in English.
Option 1: the free dictation already on your Mac
Apple includes Dictation in macOS at no cost. To turn it on: open the Apple menu > System Settings > Keyboard, scroll to Dictation and switch it on. Then press the Dictation shortcut (often the Microphone key, or the Fn key twice) and start talking. Our step-by-step guide covers it with pictures of each setting: how to turn on dictation on a Mac.
Apple Dictation is a good place to start. It adds commas and periods for you, and it’s free. What it doesn’t do is tidy up how people really talk: the “um”s, the repeated words, the sentence you started twice. And it has no way to turn rambling speech into a neat, polite message. For a fuller side-by-side, see Apple Dictation vs a dictation app.
Option 2: VybeScript, when you want it cleaner
VybeScript is a small app that sits in the menu bar at the top of your screen. The steps are the same every time:
- Click where you want to write, for example a new email.
- Tap the Option key once. (You can choose a different key in Settings.)
- Say what you want to write.
- Tap Option again. Your words appear, cleaned up.
You choose how much clean-up you want:
- Clean (the default) removes “um”, “uh” and repeated words and breaks long speech into paragraphs, without changing your words.
- Polish rewrites what you said into clear, tidy writing, still in your words. Spoken lists become bullet points.
- Formal rewrites it in a more formal tone, handy for a letter to the bank, the doctor’s office or the insurance company.
- Raw writes exactly what you said, word for word.
Polish and Formal use Apple Intelligence, so they need macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence turned on. Dictation itself, plus the Clean and Raw styles, works on any Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 14 or later.
How to check if your Mac can run it
- Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen.
- Choose About This Mac.
- Look at the line called Chip. If it says Apple M1, M2, M3, M4 or newer, your Mac has Apple silicon. If it says Processor and Intel instead, VybeScript won’t run on it, but Apple’s free Dictation will.
- The same window shows your macOS version. VybeScript needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
Private by design
Many people are, rightly, careful about apps that listen. With VybeScript, the recording, the transcription and the clean-up all happen on your Mac. There’s no account to create, and nothing you say is sent to a server. You can test it yourself: turn off Wi-Fi and dictate; it works the same. (Wondering about Apple’s free Dictation? Read is Mac dictation private?) If you ever caught VybeScript sending your voice or your words off your Mac, you’d get your money back, at any time.
A tip for family members setting this up
If you’re installing this for a parent or grandparent, set it up together and practise one real task: a short email to you. Write the steps on a card next to the computer (“Click. Tap Option. Talk. Tap Option.”). The free trial lasts 14 days or 5,000 dictated words, whichever comes first, and needs no credit card, so there’s time to see whether it sticks before anyone pays. Our setup guide for families walks through the whole visit.