Voice

Voice lets you dictate into any app and ask Fluent by speaking. Your words appear as you talk, and a small model polishes them along the way, all on your Mac.

Set Up

1. Open Settings → Voice and turn on Enable voice dictation.
2. Allow microphone access when macOS asks.
3. Wait for the downloads to finish: the icon next to Speech model and Polish model shows the progress.
4. Click into any text field, press ⌃⌥Space and speak. Press it again to finish.

Typing into other apps needs the Accessibility permission. If it's missing, Voice settings show Accessibility access required with an Open Settings button.

To use another shortcut, click Global shortcut and press the new one. You can also ask Fluent in a chat: "set my dictation shortcut to Control-Option-D".

Dictate Into Any App

Press the shortcut in any text field and talk. Words appear in the field as you speak, with no separate window.

• Click another field and keep talking: dictation follows you.
• Move to a place with no text field, and what you say next becomes a question for Fluent (see Ask Fluent below).
• Press the shortcut again to finish.

While you dictate, a floating badge with a waveform sits next to the text field, on the line you're dictating into. Hover over it for controls:

Spoken Commands

Example: in Messages, say "on my way see you soon press return". Fluent types "On my way, see you soon." and sends it.

The same commands work in your native language for 30 common languages, and the English ones always work. "Press return" is English only.

With English, German or French as your native language, spoken numbers, prices and percentages become digits: "twenty five dollars" becomes $25. As dictated leaves them spelled out.

Speech Models

Choose the model in Settings → Voice → Speech model. It runs on your Mac and downloads the first time you choose it.

The end of each name tells you what to expect: Realtime answers fastest, Balanced and High accuracy make fewer mistakes with a short delay, and English models understand only English.

Language

Multilingual models listen for your Native language, set in Settings → General → Native language. A short phrase or a pause can't slip into another language.

• Pick a regional variant to match its spelling: English (UK) for British spelling, Chinese (Traditional) for Traditional characters.
• If you switch languages often, turn on Settings → Voice → Auto-detect spoken language. The model then detects the language each time you start dictating. It has no effect on English models.
• Apple Speech can't detect the language: it uses your native language, or your Mac's language when Auto-detect spoken language is on.

Polish While Speaking

A small model on your Mac cleans up each sentence as you finish it. Choose how much in Settings → Voice → Preset, or from the badge while you dictate.

Fluent gives you five presets of your own to start with: Email, Casual, Formal, Concise and List. To make another, choose New Preset…, name it and write its instructions:

Use a warm, friendly tone and short sentences.
When I say "Best regards", put a comma after it and start a new line.

A rule like the second line, a phrase in double quotes and what to add after it (a comma, full stop, new line or new paragraph), is applied exactly every time. Manage Presets… edits, duplicates and deletes presets.

The model that polishes is chosen in Settings → Voice → Polish model:

Each model shows its size: a smaller one is faster and uses less memory. As dictated keeps no polish model in memory at all.

Turn on Final polish pass to have the whole text polished once more, with all of it in view, when you finish. It takes a moment at the end.

Polishing fixes punctuation, grammar and style. A misheard word comes from the speech model: try a more accurate one.

Voice Snippets

Say a short phrase and Fluent types the exact text you saved. Add them in Settings → Voice → Voice Snippets with Add Snippet.

• A snippet can span several lines. Bold, italic and links written in Markdown are typed as written.
• Snippets work in Ask Fluent too, so one can hold a prompt you use often.
• Fluent starts you with a few sample snippets. Edit or delete them.

Ask Fluent

Press the shortcut where there's no text field (a web page, Finder, the desktop) and speak: your words become a question for Fluent. A capsule next to your pointer shows the prompt as you speak. Press the shortcut again to send it.

The answer streams into the capsule. Then:

Ask Fluent uses your default model with your integrations and Memory, like the Smart Panel, and keeps the conversation in History. Answers in the capsule are in beta: turn off Settings → Voice → Stream replies into the floating badge to get them in the Smart Panel instead.

What you say can bring in context:

• The tab or app you're in goes along on its own, when browser or app context is on in Settings → Context.
• Say "this tab" or "this page" for the browser tab in front, "this app" or "this window" for the app. A chip appears in the capsule. Say these in your native language.
• Say an integration's name, like "web search", or a Memory group's name to use it.

For example:

• On a long article: "this page in three bullets, five words each".
• "Use web search to find out when the Louvre opens tomorrow."
• With a Memory group called Recipes: "what can I cook from Recipes with chickpeas and spinach?"

Text Input Behavior

Choose what the shortcut does in a text field in Settings → Voice → When dictating in a text field:

With no text field focused, the shortcut always asks Fluent.

Example with Ask Fluent, insert reply: in a reply box on a web page, say "politely decline and say I'm away that week". Fluent reads the page you're on and types the reply into the box.

In Fluent's Prompt

In the Smart Panel or the chat window, click the waveform button in the prompt (Dictate (on-device)) or press the shortcut. "This tab", integration names and Memory group names become chips as you speak. Press Return to send.

Settings

All in Settings → Voice:

Privacy

• Speech is turned into text and polished on your Mac. Your audio never leaves it.
• Fluent downloads the models once.
• Ask Fluent sends your prompt as text, with the tab or app it uses, to your default model, like any request. With a local model or Apple Intelligence, it stays on your Mac too.
• Voice needs Microphone access, asked when you turn it on, and Accessibility to type into other apps. See Permissions.

Troubleshooting