Speaky Box for
Claude
ChatGPT
Cursor
Slack
Mail
Google Docs
Microsoft Word
Apple NotesCompared with
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Dictation, prompting by voice, and writing faster. Short, practical, no fluff.
Mac Dictation doing nothing, cutting out or mishearing? Match what you see to the fix, with the exact System Settings paths, plus Word, Google Docs and Terminal.
Online speech to text tools are free and instant. They also make every message a copy-paste job. When a website is enough and what an app does differently.
Speechtexter is a free online voice to text page. Here's why people move on from it, and what to use on a Mac when you want the text where you're working.
Speechnotes works, but you copy every message out of it. The alternative that types clean text straight into any app on your Mac.
Nuance discontinued Dragon for Mac years ago. The alternatives that do what it did, and more, on a modern Mac, including the free options.
Looking for a talk to text app on a Mac? What to look for, why most give you a transcript instead of a message, and how hold-to-talk changes it.
Six Wispr Flow alternatives for Mac, with prices and platforms checked on each maker’s site: free, pay-once, local and AI-prompt options.
How to turn on /voice in Claude Code, hold or tap to talk, fix the microphone, and when a system-wide dictation app still helps.
How to describe changes to Cursor's agent by voice, what to say so it gets a task it can run, and where dictation doesn't help.
A prompt structure that works in Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor, why each part matters, and a template you can say out loud.
Why older dictation struggled with accents, what changed with large speech models, and how to get names and terms right whatever your English sounds like.
How to turn on speech to text on a Mac or MacBook, the shortcut, why it types "um", and the app that gives you clean text in every app instead.
macOS dictation now adds commas, full stops and question marks on its own. Here are the commands you still need to say, and what it still gets wrong.
Product names, colleagues, libraries. Why dictation gets them wrong and the five-minute fix that makes them right in every app.
Two ways to start and stop dictation. Why hold-to-talk wins for most people, and the one case where a toggle makes sense.
Talking is faster than typing and, done right, produces better prompts. Here's the structure that works, and how to get it without typing a word.
People speak at around 150 words a minute and type at 40. Here's what that means over a working week, and where the time really goes.
Built-in dictation, Wispr Flow, Lemon, Superwhisper and Speaky Box, compared on the things that actually matter: accuracy, cleanup, AI prompting and price.