Get started with Voxy on your Mac

What you need

• A Mac with Apple silicon or an Intel processor. The same download works on both.
• macOS 13 Ventura or later.
• An internet connection. Voxy needs it to write your words, so it does not work offline.

Install Voxy

1. Download Voxy from the download page.
2. Open the file you downloaded and drag Voxy into your Applications folder.
3. Open Voxy from Applications. From then on it lives in the menu bar at the top of your screen.

Sign in and confirm your email

Voxy asks you to sign in before your first take. Use your email address and a password, or choose Continue with Google, which finishes in your browser and then unlocks the app by itself.

A new account confirms its email address before it can dictate. When you create an account we send an email to that address with a 6 digit code and a link. In Voxy 0.4.1 and later, type the code on the Check your inbox screen, or open the link on any device. In Voxy 0.4.0, open the link and press Confirm my email, then sign in; the app signs you in once the address is confirmed. If you signed up with Google, there is nothing to confirm. Sign in, verify your email, and reset your password has the details, including what to do when the email does not arrive.

Setup: three small steps

Setup walks you through three steps in about two minutes.

1. Three permissions. The microphone, keyboard access (macOS calls it Accessibility) and Input Monitoring. Allow the microphone, keyboard access and Input Monitoring explains each one.
2. Your dictation key. Out of the box it is fn, the globe key. Setup asks you to set the globe key to Do Nothing in Keyboard settings so the emoji picker stays out of the way, or you can pick any other key. See Make the fn key work, or choose another key.
3. A first try. Click the practice box, hold your key, say something and let go. When your words land in the box, you are done, and every app works the same way.

You can open Setup again any time from the Voxy icon in the menu bar, or from the Voxy menu while the Voxy window is open. In Voxy 0.4.1 and later, the Help menu in the same places opens these help pages and starts an email to us. See Contact us.

Dictate

• Hold, talk, let go. Hold your key and speak. Let go, and clean English is typed where your cursor is.
• Hands free. Double tap your key, talk for as long as you like, then tap it once to finish. If your key is one that types, like Space or a letter, start hands free from the Voxy icon in the menu bar with Start hands free dictation, and press your key to finish. Hands free stops by itself after about 90 seconds of silence, and any take stops at 20 minutes.
• Cancel. Press Escape, or click the notch or island while it works. A three second countdown starts and Voxy keeps listening underneath: press your key to keep going, or press Escape again to cancel right away. If you cancel a take that is 10 seconds or longer, Voxy keeps its audio so you can retry it later.
• No text box? If nothing had a text cursor, Voxy copies the text instead and shows Copied to clipboard. Press Command V where you want it.
• Paste it again. Control Command V pastes your last take again, in any app.

What you see while you talk

On a MacBook with a notch, the notch itself grows while Voxy listens and works on your words. On a Mac without a notch, on an external display, or when your Mac shows apps below the notch, a small island appears at the top center of the screen instead. Both show the same things: that Voxy is listening, that it is writing, and any short message. When your text lands, it simply goes away.

The notch and the island never appear in screenshots, screen recordings or screen sharing. That is on purpose. If you need to tell us what one said, type the words.

How Voxy writes

Speak English, Urdu, Hindi, or any mix of them in the same sentence. Voxy always writes clean English. Fillers like um, matlab and yaani drop out, repeats and false starts go, and your corrections apply, so “at five, no wait, six” becomes “at six”.

There is no mode to pick. Voxy matches the app you are typing into: a chat app gets a relaxed message, a mail app gets proper sentences and paragraphs, a notes app keeps the structure you speak, and code editors, terminals and AI tools get precise instructions with technical words kept exactly.

Like any writing tool it can get things wrong, especially names and numbers, so glance over anything important before you send it.

Read aloud

Select text in any app and double tap Control to hear it. Tap Control once to pause and again to resume. Double tap Control again, or press Escape, to stop. Control is kept for read aloud, which is why it cannot be your dictation key.

Voxy reads with your Mac's own voices, so the text stays on your Mac. Choose a voice in Settings, under Read aloud, and click Preview to hear it. Apple's Premium and Enhanced voices sound far better and are free: click Get voices, then download one under System Voice, Manage Voices. Very long selections stop after about 6,000 characters.

Your dictionary and corrections

On the Dictation page, double click any take, or click its pencil, to correct it, then click Save. Corrections teach Voxy your vocabulary: when you fix a word it misheard, such as a name, Voxy adds your spelling to the Dictionary page by itself, and the next take spells it your way. You can remove it there.

On the Dictionary page you can also add words and names yourself, such as your own name, your company or the products you work on. Your dictionary stays on your Mac. With each take Voxy sends up to 40 of the words you added most recently, so they are spelled your way.

Scratchpad

The Scratchpad is for drafts and ideas that stay inside Voxy. Click New note, click into the note, hold your key and think out loud, then polish it and copy it where it belongs. Notes stay on your Mac and are never synced. Deleting a note always asks first.

Your history

Every take appears on the Dictation page, newest first, with buttons to read it aloud, copy it, correct it or delete it. A take that failed shows why, and a Retry button when its audio was saved. When a take fails explains each message.

Voxy on Windows

Voxy for Windows is in beta. It runs on Windows 10 and 11, on 64 bit PCs and on PCs with an Arm processor, and it needs an internet connection too.

1. Download Voxy from the download page. It offers the 64 bit version, which fits most PCs, or the Arm version when your browser says your PC has an Arm processor. Both are listed under All downloads.
2. Open the installer. Voxy installs just for you, so it needs no admin rights. The first time, Windows may show a box that says Windows protected your PC. Choose More info, then Run anyway. It asks only once.
3. Open Voxy and sign in with the same account you use on a Mac or on the website.
4. Hold Ctrl and the Windows key together, talk, and let go. Your words are typed wherever your cursor is.

While Voxy for Windows is in beta it does not update itself. When a new version comes out, download it again from the download page and open the installer.