How to dictate on iPhone: a practical guide

You can dictate a reply, a shopping list or the first draft of an email with the keyboard that is already on your iPhone. The real skill is deciding what to say and what to type. A paragraph about a late delivery is easy to speak. An order reference full of letters and numbers is usually quicker to type.

Start with a short practice note. You will learn where the microphone is, how your phone handles punctuation and what your normal speaking voice produces, without the risk of sending a half-finished message to someone.

Turn on dictation and make your first note

Open Settings, tap General, then Keyboard, and turn on Enable Dictation.
Open Notes and create a new note. Tap in the body so the keyboard appears.
If you have keyboards for several languages, touch and hold the globe key and choose an English keyboard.
Tap the microphone on the keyboard and say one complete sentence.
Tap the microphone again, or say “stop dictation”, then read what appeared.

Apple describes the setup and the controls in its iPhone User Guide. Dictation is not available in every language or region, and some features vary. Use the microphone on the keyboard: a microphone or waveform button inside a messaging app usually records a voice message instead of typing text.

For a first test, try: “Please leave the parcel with the neighbour at number twelve.” Check whether the number appears the way you would write it and whether the spelling is what you expect. You are setting a baseline, not writing a finished document. If nothing appears at all, check that Enable Dictation is on and that the microphone is active. If dictation starts and then cuts out, see what to check when iPhone dictation keeps stopping.

Speak in sentences, then edit

Think of one sentence before you tap the microphone. Speak at a normal conversational pace and pause briefly between ideas, not after every word. You do not need to sound like a radio presenter or hide your accent.

A good first exercise is a practical message: “The train into Manchester is delayed. I expect to arrive around quarter past six. Please start without me.” Those three sentences give the reader the situation, an estimate and what to do next. Dictation cannot supply that structure if you have not decided what you want to say.

If you change your mind halfway through, stop and edit. “Let’s meet Thursday, no, Friday” contains two days, and the transcript may well keep both. Don’t expect the recipient to guess which one you meant, or any automatic cleanup to always pick the right one. Replace the whole phrase with the day you mean before you send it.

Use a few punctuation commands

You can say punctuation marks by name, such as “comma” or “question mark”, and say “new line” or “new paragraph” for breaks. In supported languages, dictation also adds commas, full stops and question marks automatically. If you would rather control punctuation yourself, turn off Auto-Punctuation in Settings > General > Keyboard. Apple lists all the options on its page of commands for dictating text.

On iOS 27, Apple says that with Apple Intelligence, dictation in English uses an on-device model to improve spelling, punctuation and capitalisation on iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air and later models. It is still worth checking the result before you send it.

Practise one mark at a time. Say “Can you collect the keys question mark” and look at the result. Then dictate a two-part note with a paragraph break. Knowing how those two things behave on your phone is more useful than memorising a long list of commands you will rarely use.

If punctuation gets in the way of your thinking, get the words down first and add the marks afterwards. A message to your flatmate may only need a question mark. A complaint to a retailer needs paragraph breaks so the order details, the problem and what you want done are easy to find. Use as much formatting as the reader needs, and no more.

Check names, dates and references separately

A sentence can read smoothly and still contain the wrong name or time. After dictating, scan specifically for names, numbers, addresses and negatives. Read “I can attend” and “I can’t attend” with particular care: one small recognition error reverses the message.

If a name keeps coming out wrong, you can spell it while dictating. Apple’s example is “Let’s invite Steven S-T-E-P-H-E-N”. Editing commands such as “Change tea to T-E-E” are, according to Apple’s command list, only available in US English on iPhone 12 and later (except iPhone SE). For a postcode, ZIP code, booking reference or email address, typing or pasting the exact value is often less effort than correcting the dictated guess several times.

Write the month out when you arrange something across countries. “6 October” or “October 6” is clearer to an international reader than “06/10”, which means 10 June to someone in the US. For a call between London and New York, add the time zone to your final text. That is an editing decision, not something to leave to speech recognition.

Keep a short note with recurring names and references spelled correctly. If you often mention a school, a builder or a project with an unusual name, paste the correct spelling into your draft when you need it.

Build longer texts in small sections

For an email longer than a few lines, jot down three short headings before you speak: reason, details, next step. Dictate each part separately. Your outline is still there if the microphone stops or you need a moment to check a date.

For a packing list, separate what you need to bring from what you still need to buy. Dictate the essentials for a weekend in Edinburgh, then add a paragraph for things you are borrowing. If you remember a raincoat later, stop recording, tap where it belongs in the note and then carry on. Check that the new sentence has not landed inside a heading or between two words: text in the wrong place is a problem even when every word was recognised correctly.

After each section, stop and read it. Cut repeated introductions, move details to the right paragraph and check that the last sentence actually asks for what you need. A dictated draft is still a draft. Its advantage is that the substance is on screen before you spend time on the wording.

When a dedicated dictation keyboard helps

If the built-in microphone handles your short messages well, there is no need to change anything. A dedicated keyboard becomes worth a look when you write longer drafts, use the same specialist terms again and again, or need to check something in another app while you are speaking.

Klartext is a dictation keyboard for iPhone that needs iOS 26 or later. Its main app holds the microphone, so recording continues when you switch apps, for example to check an earlier note while drafting an email to a supplier. When you have finished, go back to the text field and stop the recording there.

Klartext also has a dictionary and replacements, and its AI cleanup removes filler words and slips and adds punctuation. English is recognised and cleaned up, but the English cleanup has not yet been reviewed by native speakers. Check names and commitments just as carefully as you would with the built-in microphone. The app itself is available in English and German.

A routine for everyday writing

Start with where the text is going and who will read it: a family message, a work email or a private note. Decide on the main point, speak one short section, then check the words that would cause trouble if they were wrong. For messages, check the recipient as well as the text. For notes, add a title you will recognise when you search for it later.

Try the routine on something low-stakes today, such as tomorrow’s shopping or a reminder to ask a neighbour about a parcel. Once you know which corrections you make most often, you can decide whether the built-in keyboard is enough or whether a separate dictation app would save you effort.

If the microphone keeps stopping before you have finished, read how to find out why iPhone dictation keeps stopping.