Mac Dictation Commands: Advanced Voice Editing on macOS

If you've ever dictated an email and ended up with one giant run-on sentence, you were missing the command list.³ Mac Dictation lets you write, punctuate, and edit text out loud, without touching the keyboard.² Saying "period" or "full stop" adds a period, and "question mark" adds a question mark.⁴

macOS Dictation listens for spoken commands the whole time you dictate, and it uses them to insert punctuation, break lines, add symbols, and control capital letters.⁴ Once you know the full command set, dictation stops being a transcription chore.

How Mac dictation commands work

To use dictation on a Mac, turn it on in System Settings under Keyboard, then Dictation.⁴ Start dictating in any text field and say the command exactly where you want it to happen.⁴

You say the phrase, not the letters. Saying "comma" out loud inserts a comma character rather than spelling the word.⁴

These commands are always available while you're dictating text on a Mac, whether you're writing an email, a note, or a document.

Mac dictation commands for punctuation and formatting

Say "period" for a full stop, "comma" for a comma, and "question mark" for a question mark.^3,4 Exclamation point or exclamation mark both add an exclamation point.^3,4

Say "colon" for a colon and "semicolon" for a semicolon.⁴ For dialogue or titles, say "open quote" and "close quote" to add quotation marks around your words.^3,4

Parentheses work the same way: say "open parenthesis" and "close parenthesis" to wrap a phrase.³ You can also call out "apostrophe," "hyphen," "dash," "em dash," and "ellipsis" or "dot dot dot" to insert those symbols directly.⁴

Where advanced voice editing fits into your workflow

Once punctuation stops being the bottleneck, dictation becomes a real writing tool instead of a transcription chore.³ The full command set covers formatting and symbols beyond punctuation, so you can shape a document by voice from start to finish.⁴

Apple documents this command list for its own built-in Dictation feature, separate from Voice Control, which is a different accessibility tool for controlling the whole Mac by voice.⁷ When Voice Control is turned on, standard Dictation isn't available at the same time, so pick the mode that matches what you're doing: dictating text versus controlling the interface.⁷

These dictation commands work well during long writing sessions, accessibility-focused workflows, and multitasking, where reaching for a keyboard breaks your flow.⁸ You can use them to compose emails, write documents, and navigate paragraphs using only spoken instructions.⁸

Picking a dictation tool that respects your privacy

Punctuation commands are only part of the picture. Where your voice recording actually goes also matters.

If you write about client work, medical notes, or anything confidential, sending audio to a cloud service is a real privacy tradeoff worth thinking about before you dictate. Voicci is a macOS menu bar app built around private, on-device voice-to-text.¹

It uses local Whisper-based speech recognition, works offline, and inserts transcribed text into whatever app you're using through a global hotkey.¹ Pairing that kind of local-first transcription with the punctuation and formatting commands built into macOS means your audio can stay on your own Mac.¹

If you want private, on-device voice-to-text on your Mac, Voicci offers local Whisper-based transcription for this kind of workflow.¹

What to practice next

Start with the basics: period, comma, question mark, and new line.^3,4 Add quotes and parentheses once those feel automatic, then layer in dashes and ellipses for longer-form writing.^3,4

Check Apple's own command reference in System Settings periodically, since the list is tied to your macOS version and gets updated with new releases.⁶