Dictation on a Mac fails in a small number of very specific ways, and almost none of them are actually broken software. The microphone level is moving but no text appears. It transcribes three words and stops. The switch in System Settings is greyed out. The shortcut does nothing in one app and works fine in another.
Below are the twelve fixes that resolve nearly every case, ordered so the most likely culprit comes first. Most take under a minute. Work down the list and stop when your words show up.
Before you start: figure out which layer is failing. If macOS shows a live microphone indicator in the menu bar while you speak, your audio is fine and the problem is downstream — jump to fix 5. If there is no indicator at all, start at fix 1.
The 12 fixes, in order of likelihood
1Confirm Dictation is actually switched on
Open System Settings → Keyboard and check the Dictation toggle. It is off by default on a fresh install and, less obviously, it can be reset by a major macOS upgrade. While you are there, note the shortcut listed underneath — a surprising number of “dictation is broken” reports are really “I am pressing the wrong key”.
2Grant microphone permission to the right app
Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone. macOS grants microphone access per app, so dictation can work in Notes and fail in Chrome. If the app you care about is listed but off, switch it on. If it is not listed at all, quit and relaunch it so it re-requests access.
3Check which input device macOS is listening to
System Settings → Sound → Input. Speak, and watch the level meter. No movement means macOS is listening to something other than the microphone you are talking into — a monitor's built-in mic, an unmuted webcam, a Bluetooth headset that connected in playback-only mode. Select the correct device and confirm the meter responds.
AirPods are worth a special mention: they occasionally connect for output only. Toggling Bluetooth off and on, or removing and re-selecting them as the input device, restores the microphone.
4Let the language model finish downloading
On-device recognition needs a language model, and the download is silent. If you have just enabled dictation or added a language, give it a few minutes on a decent connection before deciding it doesn't work. Try removing the language and adding it back to restart a stalled download.
5Grant Accessibility access — the fix nobody finds
This is the single most common cause of “it hears me but nothing gets typed” with any third-party dictation app, including Air Wisper. macOS forbids one app from inserting text into another until you explicitly allow it.
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and switch the app on. If it is already on and still failing, switch it off and back on — the permission goes stale after an app update, and a stale grant looks identical to a granted one. Then relaunch the app.
6Look for a keyboard shortcut conflict
Global shortcuts are first-come, first-served. If Spotlight, Raycast, Alfred, a window manager, or a screenshot tool already owns your dictation shortcut, dictation silently never starts. Test by assigning a deliberately odd combination; if that works, you have a conflict and can pick a permanent replacement.
7Test in a second app to isolate the failure
Open TextEdit or Notes and dictate one sentence. If it works there but not in your target app, the problem is that app — not dictation. Electron apps, remote desktop sessions, virtual machines, and some secure text fields (password managers, banking sites) deliberately reject synthesised keystrokes. Nothing you change in System Settings will fix a field designed to refuse input.
8Fix a greyed-out Dictation switch
If the toggle cannot be clicked at all, something is restricting it rather than breaking it. Check Screen Time → Content & Privacy, which can block dictation outright. On a work Mac, look in Privacy & Security → Profiles for a management profile — if IT has disabled dictation by policy, that is a conversation rather than a setting.
9Turn Dictation off, restart, turn it on
The closest thing to an official reset. Switching dictation off, rebooting, and switching it on forces macOS to re-fetch its speech assets and clears stuck states left behind by an interrupted download or an upgrade. Try this before anything more invasive.
10Free up disk space
Speech models need room. On a Mac with only a couple of gigabytes free, downloads fail quietly and recognition degrades or refuses to start. Check System Settings → General → Storage and clear some headroom.
11Update macOS — or wait a week after updating
Speech frameworks change with the OS. If dictation broke the day you updated, check for a follow-up point release; if it broke and you are several versions behind, updating is the fix. Either way, restart afterwards so permissions and daemons reload cleanly.
12Rule out the microphone itself
Record five seconds in Voice Memos or QuickTime and play it back. If the recording is silent or distorted there too, this was never a dictation problem — it is hardware, a case blocking the mic port, or a dead cable. That single test saves a lot of settings archaeology.
When it isn't a bug — it's a limit
Some complaints filed as faults are the tool working exactly as designed. It helps to know which is which:
- “It types every um and uh.” Correct behaviour. A transcription engine transcribes; it has no mandate to edit you.
- “Punctuation is wrong unless I say it out loud.” Also by design. Built-in dictation places punctuation from pauses and spoken markers, not from meaning.
- “It cannot tell ‘their’ from ‘there’.” Homophones need sentence-level context. Raw recognition works phonetically.
- “I still edit every dictation.” That is the real complaint underneath most of the others.
Those four are not fixable in System Settings, because they are not settings. They are the gap between a transcript and a sentence — and closing that gap is precisely what an AI cleanup pass does. Air Wisper transcribes on-device using the same Apple speech engine, then rewrites the transcript before typing it into your app: filler words gone, punctuation placed by meaning, self-corrections resolved. Your audio never leaves the Mac; only the text goes out for polish.
A quick diagnostic: if your dictation problem is “no text appears”, it is a permission — fix 2 or fix 5. If it is “the wrong text appears”, it is a limit, and no amount of troubleshooting will change it.
Frequently asked questions
Why is dictation not working on my Mac?
In most cases it is one of four things: Dictation is switched off in System Settings → Keyboard, the app you are typing into has not been granted microphone access, the wrong audio input device is selected, or the language pack for on-device recognition has not finished downloading. Work through those four before anything else.
Why is Dictation greyed out in System Settings?
A greyed-out Dictation switch usually means a restriction rather than a fault: Screen Time content restrictions, a device management (MDM) profile on a work Mac, or a Mac signed in to an account without the necessary permissions. Check Screen Time first, then look for a profile in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Profiles.
Why does my Mac stop dictating after a few seconds?
Two common causes. Some languages and older configurations use server-based recognition with a per-session length cap, so long dictations get cut off. And if the microphone signal drops below the noise floor — a muted headset, or the wrong input device — macOS treats the silence as the end of your sentence. Switching the language to one with an on-device model usually removes the cap.
How do I reset dictation on a Mac?
Switch Dictation off in System Settings → Keyboard, restart the Mac, then switch it back on and let the language model download again. This re-fetches the speech assets and clears the majority of stuck states without touching anything else on your system.
Why can my Mac hear me but no text appears?
That pattern — microphone level moving, nothing typed — is almost always the Accessibility permission. On macOS, an app is not allowed to insert text into other applications until you grant it Accessibility access in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Toggle the app off and on there, then relaunch it.
Skip the troubleshooting
Air Wisper walks you through microphone and Accessibility permissions on first launch, then stays out of the way.
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