Mac dictation punctuation: what it adds for you, and what it still doesn’t

If you learnt Mac dictation a few years ago, you learnt to say “comma” and “full stop” out loud. On current macOS you mostly don’t have to. Mac dictation now puts in commas, full stops and question marks by itself in supported languages, and capitalises the next word for you. It’s on by default, and you can switch it off in System Settings > Keyboard, under Dictation.

So the old complaint has moved. Punctuation inside a sentence is largely handled. What’s left is structure, the less common marks, and everything you didn’t mean to say.

What Mac dictation punctuates for you

Commas, full stops and question marks, placed from your pauses and the shape of the sentence. Apple doesn’t list which languages get this on its dictation help page; it points to the macOS feature availability page, so check there if you dictate in something other than English.

The punctuation commands you still say

Spoken commands still work alongside the automatic marks. You need them for anything beyond the basic three:

• “new line” and “new paragraph” for structure, which is the one you’ll use most
• “exclamation mark”, “colon”, “semicolon”, “hyphen”
• “open quote” and “close quote”
• “comma” or “full stop” (or “period”) when the automatic version guesses wrong

If you dictate long emails, the habit to build is saying “new paragraph”. Without it you get one block of text however well the commas land.

What it still gets wrong

It keeps everything you said. Ums, “sorry, I mean”, a sentence you started twice: all of it goes in, correctly punctuated.

Pauses are not always sentences. Stop to think mid-thought and you can get a full stop in the middle of a sentence, which you then delete by hand.

No sense of layout. Lists, greetings on their own line and sign-offs all need spoken commands or fixing afterwards.

When built-in is enough, and when it isn’t

For a quick message or a sentence in a search box, Mac dictation is fine now, and it’s free. Where it falls down is anything you’d otherwise type carefully: emails, documents, long prompts. Speaky Box takes a different approach on its Dictate key. It transcribes what you said, then rewrites it into what you meant: ums and false starts removed, paragraphs where they belong, names spelt from your Words list. You hold a key, talk the way you would to a person, and finished text lands where your cursor is.

The full comparison with Mac dictation covers accuracy, privacy and price, and speech to text on Mac walks through every option, built in or not.