Dictation

Voice dictation

Hold Right Option, speak, and let go: Sloth transcribes on your Mac and pastes the text where your cursor is. Double-tap the key to dictate hands-free.

Two ways to dictate

Press Esc while dictating to cancel.

Change the key in Settings › Shortcuts. Push to talk takes a single modifier key: left or right Command, Option, Control or Shift, or Fn. You can also set how long you need to hold the key before recording starts.

Where the text goes

Sloth pastes the text into the app that has focus. It puts the text on the clipboard, sends Paste, then puts your previous clipboard contents back about half a second later.

Past dictations are listed under Dictations in the main window (⌘1). The menu bar icon's Recent Dictations lets you copy one again. Settings › General › Clear dictation history removes them all.

Models

Dictation uses a speech model on your Mac by default (Local). If you add an OpenAI or OpenRouter key, you can choose that provider instead in Settings › Dictation › Speech recognition; your dictated audio is then sent to it.

Dictionary

Settings › Dictionary holds words Sloth should get right: names, product terms, jargon. Each entry can have a replacement, so a word you say is written the way you want. You can import and export the dictionary as JSON.

Dictionary suggestions is off by default. When on, Sloth briefly reads the text in the focused app after you dictate, spots corrections you made, and suggests dictionary entries. It needs Accessibility.

Permissions dictation needs

Setup asks for each one. If dictation stops working, see Permissions and troubleshooting.