Voice Input

Draft supports voice input so you can speak your instructions naturally. Voice recognition runs entirely on your Mac using the Whisper model—your audio never leaves your device.

Privacy first

Like everything in Draft, voice processing is completely local. Audio is transcribed in real-time and immediately discarded. Nothing is stored or transmitted.

Setting Up Voice Input

Grant Microphone Permission

Draft needs microphone access to use voice input. If you haven't already granted this permission:

Open System Settings
Go to Privacy & Security → Microphone
Find Draft in the list and enable it

Voice input is optional. If you prefer typing, you can skip microphone permission entirely.

Using Voice Input

Press and Hold

The simplest way to use voice input is the press-and-hold method:

Press and hold your Draft shortcut (⌥+Space by default)
Speak your instruction: "make this clearer" or "shorten this"
Release the keys when you're done speaking
Draft processes immediately

How it works

Hold ⌥+Space → Speak → Release → Done

Toggle Mode

For longer instructions, you can use toggle mode:

Press ⌥+Space once to open Draft
Click the microphone icon or press ⌘+M
Speak your instruction
Click the icon again or press ↵ when done

Tips for Better Recognition

Voice recognition works best when you follow these guidelines:

🎯

Speak clearly

Use a natural pace. No need to speak slowly, but articulate clearly.

💬

Be direct

Start with the action: "shorten this", "make it clearer", "turn into bullets".

🔇

Quiet environment

Background noise can affect recognition accuracy.

🗣️

Use natural language

Speak as you would to a colleague: "can you make this more professional?"

Example Commands

Here are some example voice commands that work well:

🎤"Make this clearer"

🎤"Shorten it"

🎤"More professional please"

🎤"Turn this into bullet points"

🎤"Give me an executive summary"

🎤"Extract the action items"

🎤"Draft a polite decline"

🎤"Improve this prompt"

🎤"Fix the grammar"

🎤"Make it friendlier"

🎤"Translate to Spanish"

🎤"Simplify the language"

Voice Activity Detection

Draft automatically detects when you start and stop speaking:

•Auto-start — Recording begins when you start speaking
•Auto-stop — Processing starts after a brief pause in speech
•Visual feedback — The overlay shows when Draft is listening

Quick tip

If you're done speaking and Draft hasn't started processing, just release the shortcut keys or press ↵.