Talk to text on Android: every way to dictate in any app

“Talk to text” on Android usually means one thing: the microphone on your keyboard. But depending on your phone, there’s also Pixel-only voice typing with automatic punctuation, Samsung’s own voice engine, hands-free control with Voice Access, and AI apps that float a bubble over any app and clean up what you say.

Here is each option: how to start it, what it’s good at and where it stops. Facts about Google, Samsung, Microsoft and other apps come from their own help pages, checked October 2026.

Quick answer: tap any text field, then tap the microphone at the top of your keyboard and talk. Say “comma”, “period” or “new line” for punctuation. Tap the mic again to stop.

1. Gboard voice typing (most Android phones)

Gboard is the default keyboard on Pixel and many other phones, and its voice typing works “in most places where you can type with a keyboard”, as Google puts it.

1. Open any app you can type in — Gmail, Keep, WhatsApp.
2. Tap a text field, then tap the microphone at the top of the keyboard.
3. When you see “Speak now”, talk.

Add punctuation by saying it: “period”, “comma”, “exclamation point”, “question mark”, “new line”, “new paragraph”. Google notes these may not be available in every language, and that talk-to-text doesn’t work with all languages. To fix a word, touch and hold it, tap the mic and say the replacement. To see the full command list, open the keyboard menu and look for Show voice commands.

Advanced voice typing (Pixel 6 and newer)

On Pixel 6 and later, Gboard has a better mode. Turn it on in Gboard Settings → Voice typing → Advanced voice typing features. Google lists:

• Automatic punctuation as you speak.
• Voice commands while dictating: “Delete last word”, “Clear”, “Clear all”, “Send”, “Next” (jump to the next field), “Stop”, and emoji by name (“smiley emoji”).
• On-device processing: “the text you speak stays on your device”, with exceptions for some editing features.
• Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

Rambler (Pixel 11)

On the Pixel 11 series, Gboard adds Rambler, powered by Gemini. It removes filler words and fixes grammar and punctuation as you talk, and lets you switch languages mid-sentence. Turn it on in Gboard Settings → Voice typing → Rambler. Google says audio and text are temporarily processed by Google; offline it does only basic clean-up.

Best for: free, quick voice typing on any phone — and genuinely good on a recent Pixel.

2. Samsung Keyboard (Galaxy phones)

Samsung phones come with two voice engines: Samsung voice input, which only works inside Samsung Keyboard, and Google Voice Typing.

• To dictate: tap the microphone on the Samsung Keyboard toolbar.
• To choose the engine: Samsung Keyboard settings → Voice input.
• To use Google’s engine as a keyboard: Settings → General management → Keyboard list and default, and switch Google Voice Typing on.
• Offline: Samsung’s guide has an “Offline voice input” section where you install an offline language pack.

Best for: Galaxy owners who want to keep Samsung’s keyboard.

3. Microsoft SwiftKey

Tap the microphone on the SwiftKey toolbar, or long-press the comma key. By default SwiftKey uses “Multimodal Voice Typing”, which keeps the keyboard visible while you dictate so you can mix voice and taps. Microsoft says voice-to-text currently supports English only; if you turn multimodal typing off, SwiftKey falls back to Android’s speech recognition, powered by Google.

Best for: SwiftKey users who dictate in English.

4. Voice Access (hands-free)

Voice Access is Google’s accessibility app for controlling the whole phone by voice: “open apps, navigate, and edit text hands-free”. Start it by saying “Hey Google, start Voice Access”, or with its floating button.

For dictation it has its own commands: “Type” followed by what you want written, “Insert … after …”, “Select [word]”, “Delete”, “Start editing” and “Stop editing”. Google lists English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese and Japanese.

Best for: people who can’t or don’t want to touch the screen. For everyday messages, keyboard dictation is quicker.

(Google’s Live Transcribe is different: it captions conversations around you in real time. It’s for reading what others say, not typing into apps.)

5. AI dictation bubbles (any app, any keyboard)

The newest option isn’t a keyboard at all. AI dictation apps put a small floating bubble next to the text field you’re in. You tap it, talk, and the app sends back cleaned-up text: fillers out, false starts fixed, punctuation and formatting in. Because they sit on top of your keyboard, you keep Gboard, Samsung Keyboard or whatever you use.

Wisper — our app. The bubble appears at the screen edge when a text field is focused. Tap it, talk, tap ✓, and clean text lands in WhatsApp, Gmail, Telegram — anything. Hold the bubble to switch the output language: speak in one language and Wisper writes in another, translating into 30 languages. You can create your own styles (“Reply to clients: warm, short, no emoji”), select text and say what to change, and use snippets and a dictionary. There’s an offline mode after a one-time download of the on-device model (~640 MB), covering the most widely spoken European languages; with a connection it works in any language. It runs on Android 9 and later, with free daily dictations; Pro is $49.99 a year.

Wisper needs two permissions, and it’s worth knowing why:

• Accessibility — so the bubble can see when a text field is focused and paste your text into it.
• Display over other apps — so the bubble can float above WhatsApp, Gmail and the rest.

Wispr Flow also uses a floating bubble “whenever you’re in a text field”. It needs Android 13 or newer and an internet connection. Aqua Voice describes itself as “a floating button, not a keyboard”, needs Android 10 or later, and transcribes on its servers. Superwhisper has a bubble that “hovers over any app” and supports Android phones. For prices and features side by side, see Wisper vs Gboard voice typing and our comparison hub.

Best for: long messages and emails, writing in more than one language, and anyone tired of fixing raw dictation.

Which one should you use?

How to change your keyboard or voice input

• Pixel and most phones: Settings → System → Keyboard → On-screen keyboard, then turn on the keyboard you want. Switch between keyboards with the keyboard icon at the bottom of the screen while typing.
• Samsung Galaxy: Settings → General management → Keyboard list and default.
• AI bubbles don’t need any of this: install, grant the permissions the app asks for, and the bubble appears over whatever keyboard you have.

When talk to text isn’t working

• No mic on the keyboard? Voice input may be off in the keyboard’s settings, or the keyboard may not have microphone permission (Settings → Apps → your keyboard → Permissions).
• Wrong language? In Gboard, tap the language abbreviation at the bottom left of the toolbar to switch; multiple languages must be enabled first.
• It stops early or mishears? Move somewhere quieter, hold the phone closer, and speak in full sentences rather than word by word.
• Bubble not appearing? Check that the app still has Accessibility and “Display over other apps”. Some phones turn these off after updates or for battery saving.

Start with the mic you already have. If you find yourself fixing every message, that’s the moment an AI bubble pays for itself — try one next to your keyboard for a week and compare.