Keyboard shortcuts

The defaults

VoiceSnap Pro has two modes, Dictation and Voice notes, and each has a key you hold and a hands-free shortcut. Only the first one matters on day one; the rest are there when you want them.

• Dictate (hold) — Right Option on macOS, Right Alt on Windows.
• Dictate (hands-free) — Control + Option + D on macOS, Ctrl + Alt + D on Windows.
• Take a voice note (hold) — Right Command on macOS, Right Ctrl on Windows.
• Take a voice note (hands-free) — Control + Option + N, Ctrl + Alt + N.
• Cancel the recording in progress — Escape, on both platforms.
• Paste last dictation — Control + Option + V, Ctrl + Alt + V.
• Open the dictation history from any app — Control + Option + H, Ctrl + Alt + H.

Holding the key, in detail

Hold the key, speak, release. Recording starts on key-down and stops on key-up, and the text is pasted after you release. A press shorter than about a quarter of a second is ignored as a mis-tap, so brushing the key while typing costs you nothing.

Holding keeps the mic open only while you are pressing, which is what makes it safe in a shared office. It also keeps you honest about the target app: the field that had focus when you pressed the key is the field that gets the text.

Hands-free, in detail

Press once to start, speak, press again to stop. Nothing is pasted until you stop, so you can think, pause, and keep going without producing three separate blobs of text.

The mic pill stays on screen for the whole session, so you can always see that it is listening. A session can run for up to four hours; you get a warning five minutes before the limit, and then it stops and transcribes what you said.

• Escape cancels the session and throws the audio away — nothing is typed and nothing is saved.
• Clicking into a different app during a session does not move the target. The text still goes to the app that had focus when you started.

Choosing a different key

Open Settings → Shortcuts and pick the key you hold to dictate from the list: Right Option, Right Command, Right Control or Right Shift on macOS; Right Alt, Right Ctrl or Right Shift on Windows. The key you hold for voice notes is chosen the same way in Settings → Voice notes. The two have to be different keys.

Only right-hand modifiers are offered, and that is deliberate: holding one key is easier than holding three, and the right-hand modifiers are rarely used on their own. The hands-free shortcuts, Escape and Paste last dictation keep their keys; Paste last dictation can be switched off if another app needs Control + Option + V.

If you type with Right Option or AltGr

On many keyboard layouts the right-hand Option or Alt key types characters — AltGr + E for €, Option + 2 for ™. A quick press of the dictation key does nothing, and pressing another key while you hold it cancels the recording, so typing a character with it never turns into a dictation.

If you still start dictations by accident, choose Right Shift or Right Control as your dictation key instead.

Cancelling, undoing and pasting again

Escape during a recording cancels it: the audio is dropped, nothing is typed, nothing is saved. That is the fastest fix when you realise you are pointed at the wrong window.

After the text has been pasted, your app's own undo (⌘ Z / Ctrl + Z) removes it, usually in one step, because VoiceSnap Pro pastes the whole dictation at once. Control + Option + V (Ctrl + Alt + V) pastes your last dictation again at the cursor, which is how you recover from an app that swallowed it.

When a shortcut needs more than a key

A global shortcut is a system-level privilege on both platforms, so the right key can still do nothing until the OS agrees.

• macOS: grant Accessibility and Input Monitoring, then restart VoiceSnap Pro. Settings → Permissions shows both.
• Windows: an app running as administrator does not accept a paste from a normal app. The mic pill says so instead of losing the text, and the dictation stays in your history.
• Both: full-screen games and remote-desktop clients that capture raw input can swallow the shortcut. Windowed mode gives it back.
• Pause dictation, in the menu bar or tray menu and in Settings → General, turns both modes off until you resume.