Good sound, accurate dictation

Speedy Flow removes hesitations, adds punctuation and learns your words. But transcription quality starts before all that: at the microphone. A clear signal, your voice close by, little noise around you, and speech to text becomes close to perfect.

Which microphone should you use for voice dictation on Mac?

No studio gear needed. The right mic is the one that picks up your voice louder than everything else. Three common setups:

Your Mac's built-in mic: simple and often enough

For most dictation, the mic in your MacBook or display does the job nicely. To get the most out of it:

• Stay facing the screen, at a normal working distance. If you turn your head or move away, your voice gets quieter and room noise takes up more space.
• Avoid typing while you dictate: the keyboard sits right next to a laptop's mics.
• Don't cover your Mac: a laptop closed and connected to an external display, or tucked under papers, picks up poorly.
• Watch out for echo: a large, empty room bounces sound back. Curtains, rugs and furniture soften it.

Headsets, wired earbuds and USB mics

Headset or earbuds with a mic

The closer the mic is to your mouth, the more your voice dominates background noise. It's the safest option in a café, an open office or at home with people around. Place the mic slightly to the side of your mouth, not right in front, to avoid breath sounds.

USB desk mic

A USB mic gives you steady sound for long voice to text sessions. A few rules:

• Place it about 8 inches (20 cm) away, pointed toward your mouth, slightly off to the side.
• Set the input volume so your voice comes through clearly without clipping: audio that crackles or “pops” transcribes poorly.
• A foam windscreen or pop filter softens hard “p” and “b” sounds.

AirPods and Bluetooth headsets: what to know

Wireless earbuds are handy for dictating on the move. Just know that on many Bluetooth headsets, turning on the mic switches the connection to a “call” mode: audio quality drops, both for listening and for the mic. You'll often notice it when your music sounds duller while you talk.

• If accuracy matters most (long texts, technical vocabulary), try your Mac's mic or a wired mic and compare.
• You can keep your earbuds for listening and pick a different mic for dictating in Speedy Flow (see below).
• Make sure your earbuds are charged and properly connected: a connection that drops cuts off your voice too.

Choosing the mic in Speedy Flow

By default, Speedy Flow uses the mic selected by macOS. You can choose a different one (the app's interface is in French for now):

1. Open Speedy Flow, then Settings (« Réglages ») → Microphone.
2. Click « Changer » (Change) and pick your mic from the list, or « Automatique (défaut système) » (Automatic, system default).
3. If the selected mic is unplugged, the app tells you: plug it back in or switch back to automatic.

In the same settings, turn on Voice isolation (« Isolation de la voix »): it reduces background noise using macOS voice processing. To check your mic level, open System Settings → Sound → Input and talk: the meter should move clearly without staying maxed out.

Reduce noise for reliable speech recognition

• Turn off constant noise sources: fans, air conditioning, TV, music in the room.
• Close the window if the street is noisy.
• Move away from conversations: a voice close to the mic can blend with yours.
• Mute notification sounds during long dictations.

Speak well for clean text on the first try

• Speak naturally, at your usual pace, as you would to a colleague. No need to over-enunciate.
• Think your sentence through, then say it in one go. The “um”s and repetitions are removed, and your corrections (“no, make that Friday”) are taken into account.
• Leave punctuation to Speedy Flow: periods, commas and capital letters are added for you.
• Hold fn until the last word, then release. For long texts, use ⌥ Space instead: press once to start, again to stop.
• Add your proper names to the Dictionary: clients, brands, acronyms. And fix a word after a dictation: Speedy Flow remembers it.

Your mic during meetings

For meeting notes, you don't need a headset. Your voice and the participants' voices are captured on two separate tracks, and sentences the mic picks up twice are filtered out. You just need to allow “Screen & System Audio Recording” in Settings (« Réglages ») → Meetings and calls (« Réunions et appels ») → Participants' audio (« Son des participants »). More details on the meeting notes page.

The essentials at a glance

Frequently asked questions