Dictation in Obsidian
Voice dictation in Obsidian for notes, daily logs, and long-form drafts
Obsidian has no built-in dictation, only community plugins you install and configure per vault. SnailText speaks into every Obsidian note from one system-wide install and cleans the text up locally.
Mac & Windows · Works in any field · Nothing uploaded
AI dictation in Obsidian, on your device
SnailText is AI dictation: a speech model turns your voice into text, then a second model cleans it up, dropping filler, fixing punctuation, and matching the style your work needs. Both models run on your own machine, so nothing you say in Obsidian is uploaded for transcription. Press the hotkey, speak, and the finished text lands at your cursor.
Does Obsidian have built-in dictation?
Obsidian has no native dictation. Voice typing comes only from community plugins (Whisper, Local Dictation, and others), and while some of them do run locally, each one is a separate install with its own setup, and a few need API keys or model downloads. They also only work inside Obsidian. SnailText is one system-wide install that dictates into every Obsidian note and every other app on Mac and Windows, with a local AI cleanup pass so the text lands clean without per-plugin configuration.
Speech to text in Obsidian: how it works
SnailText does not plug into Obsidian directly. It runs system-wide: a global hotkey (Option+Space (Mac) / Ctrl+Space (Windows), customizable) starts recording, the local speech-to-text engine (Whisper or Parakeet) transcribes what you said, and the text is pasted at your cursor through the system clipboard, the same way it lands when you type. That means it works in every Obsidian field, plus every other app on your Mac or Windows machine, with no extension or integration to set up.
That matters in Obsidian specifically: long-form notes and drafts are exactly where typing is the slowest and speaking is the fastest. Speech to text removes that bottleneck without changing how you work in Obsidian.
Voice to text in Obsidian: what to dictate
Voice typing in Obsidian is not limited to one box. Press the hotkey anywhere a cursor blinks and your speech becomes text, so the things you would normally type out by hand become things you just say.
- · Daily notes and journal entries
- · Long-form drafts and outlines
- · Meeting and reading notes
- · Ideas captured quickly before they slip
Where typing slows you down in Obsidian
- · Long-form notes and drafts are exactly where typing is the slowest and speaking is the fastest.
- · Obsidian has no native dictation, so you have to pick, install, and configure a community plugin to get any voice input.
- · A plugin only works inside Obsidian, so you still type in every other app.
Example dictations for Obsidian
Daily note
"Today I scoped the offline page consolidation, decided to redirect the dead page into the stronger one, and shipped the change. Tomorrow: start the compliance landing page."
Draft
"The core argument is that privacy by architecture beats privacy by policy, because a promise not to look at your data is weaker than never having the data leave your machine in the first place."
Reading note
"Key takeaway from this chapter: spaced repetition works because retrieval effort strengthens memory more than re-reading does. Link this to the note on active recall."
Obsidian voice dictation FAQ
Does Obsidian have built-in dictation?
Why use SnailText instead of an Obsidian voice plugin?
Can I use voice typing in Obsidian?
Does the dictation work offline?
Is my voice uploaded anywhere?
How much does SnailText cost?
Start dictating in Obsidian
Free local speech-to-text, no account needed. Works in Obsidian and every other app on Mac and Windows.