Voice to Text Samsung and Android: How to Turn It On in Any App

Your Android phone can already write while you talk. Speech to text on Android lives in the keyboard: tap the microphone, speak, and the text appears in whatever app you're in. Here is how to turn it on, use it everywhere, turn it off, and what to do when you need clean text the first time.

How to turn on voice typing on Android (Gboard)

On most Android phones the default keyboard is Gboard, which includes voice typing.

1. Open any app with a text field and tap the field to bring up the keyboard.
2. Tap the microphone icon 🎤, top right on Gboard.
3. Allow microphone access the first time.
4. Speak naturally. For punctuation, say “period”, “comma”, “question mark” or “new line”.
5. Tap the microphone again to stop.

No microphone icon? Go to Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard > Voice typing and turn on “Use voice typing”. On a Samsung Galaxy, the Samsung Keyboard has its own microphone icon.

How to turn on voice to text on Samsung (Samsung Keyboard)

Samsung Galaxy phones use the Samsung Keyboard, which has its own voice input.

1. Tap a text field to bring up the Samsung Keyboard.
2. Tap the microphone icon 🎤 on the keyboard's toolbar.
3. The first time, agree to the terms or allow permissions if your phone asks.
4. Dictate your message, then tap the microphone again to stop.

No microphone icon, or prefer Google voice typing? Go to Settings > General management > Keyboard list and default > Samsung Keyboard > Voice input, then choose Samsung voice input or Google Voice Typing.

How to dictate a text message, or anything else

Voice typing lives in the keyboard, not in the app, so the gesture is identical everywhere. To dictate a text message on Android: tap the message field in Messages, WhatsApp, Signal or Instagram, tap the microphone, dictate, then send. Same for an email, a note, a search box or a document in the Google Docs app (the Tools > Voice typing menu is desktop-only, see our Google Docs voice typing guide).

Dictating offline

By default, Android speech recognition sends your voice to Google's servers. Gboard can download offline packs: Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard > Voice typing > Offline speech recognition. Expect fewer languages, several hundred megabytes each, and noticeably lower accuracy on long sentences, accents or background noise. More in our local vs cloud comparison.

Where built-in voice typing stops

Gboard is fine for a quick message. On anything longer:

• Word for word. The “ums”, the repeats and the abandoned sentences all land in the text.
• Punctuation by hand. Saying “comma”, “period”, “new line” breaks your train of thought.
• No formatting, no paragraphs, no grammar correction.

On a professional email or a report, you end up fixing it with your thumbs, which eats the time you saved.

Fast Dictate: AI dictation in any Android app

Fast Dictate keeps your usual keyboard. Tap a text field and a small microphone bubble appears over it: you speak, and clean text is inserted straight into the app you're in, whether that's Messages, Gmail, WhatsApp, Slack, Notion, LinkedIn or your browser.

The difference is what it does with your voice. Gboard transcribes; Fast Dictate rewrites. The AI removes hesitations and repeats, punctuates on its own instead of making you say “comma”, fixes spelling and grammar, and breaks the text into paragraphs or lists. You get a finished message rather than a draft to fix with your thumbs, and you write 3 to 5 times faster than typing.

Your voice also stays in Europe: with the Pro Plan, it's processed on ISO 27001-certified servers in France, with zero data retention, under the GDPR, when most competing apps transcribe on US servers. Available on Google Play, iPhone, Mac and Windows.

How to turn off voice typing on Android

1. Open Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard.
2. Go into Voice typing.
3. Turn off “Use voice typing”. The microphone icon disappears from your keyboard.

Same path to turn it back on. On Samsung, the setting is in the Samsung Keyboard settings.

Frequently asked questions