use case · when typing hurts
Sore wrists, repetitive strain, or a long day that isn't done with you — when every paragraph costs something, move the bulk of it to your voice. One shortcut, a spoken sentence, and the words are typed at your cursor, in any app.
Press Ctrl ` and talk — email, documents, chats, forms, search boxes: wherever the cursor is, that's where the words go, already on the clipboard as backup. Toggle mode is the gentlest: one tap to start, one to stop, nothing to hold. Push-to-talk and a hybrid are there if you prefer them, and every shortcut can be moved to whatever key asks the least of your hands.
Optional live captions show your words as you pause, so you can speak looking at the screen rather than at the keyboard. Pro streams them word by word while you are still talking.
When your voice is doing the typing, a word cap isn't an annoyance — it's a wall. Dictation here is free and unlimited: no caps, no trial clock, no subscription, and nothing that is free today ever moves behind the paywall. After a one-time model download it works offline too, so the setup you rely on doesn't depend on a connection.
Start the app at login and it is there before you are. Tuck the button into the tray and run everything from the one shortcut. Pro can give each program its own behaviour — down to the keystroke sent after a paste, so a dictated chat message goes out without an extra press.
CroppickVoice shoulders the writing — it doesn't move the mouse or drive menus by voice, and starting it still takes that one shortcut. If most of your day is prose, that's most of the strain moved to your voice; the clicks stay yours. And when something needs showing rather than writing up, Alt ` crops the screen so you can mark it and talk about it — an annotated screenshot plus your words, with barely a key pressed.
No. CroppickVoice takes the writing: it types what you say at your cursor. Menus, clicks and the mouse stay yours, so pair it with an accessibility tool built for hands-free control if you need that too.
No. Dictation is free and unlimited — no word caps, no trial clock, no subscription — and after a one-time model download it works offline.
Yes. Dictation, Crop & Speak and capture-only each have their own shortcut, and each can be rebound in Settings.
No. Toggle mode is one tap to start and one to stop; push-to-talk is there only if you want it.
Speech becomes text on your device; nothing is uploaded. Related: writing by voice, dictating email, speech to text for Windows and all use cases.