How to do voice to text on Google Docs
There are two ways to do voice typing in Google Docs. With SnailText, the steps are the same in every browser:
- Download SnailText for Windows or Mac and install it.
- Open your document in Google Docs in any browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Arc, or Brave.
- Click into the document where you want the text, then press the hotkey (Ctrl+Space on Windows, Option+Space on Mac) and speak.
- Press the hotkey again to stop. The transcribed text is pasted at your cursor, exactly as if you had typed it.
Google's own built-in option is the alternative: open Tools → Voice Typing, then click the microphone icon. It works the same way but only in Chrome, Edge, and Safari, and it requires an internet connection every time because the transcription happens on Google's servers.
Why Google Docs Voice Typing has limits
Google Docs ships with built-in Voice Typing under Tools → Voice Typing. Per Google's own documentation, it runs in Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Firefox is not supported. For casual use with reliable internet it works.
The limits stack up when your workflow is anything more than that. Voice Typing requires an active internet connection because the speech model runs on Google's servers, not in your browser. Audio you dictate, including document drafts of any sensitivity, traverses the public internet and is processed by Google's cloud STT service before the text appears in your document.
Voice Typing also lives inside the Google Docs editor only: the main document body and Slides speaker notes. Comment threads, the chat sidebar, and other non-body text fields are not covered.
Google Docs voice typing in Firefox
Firefox is the single most common reason people look for an alternative. Google's Voice Typing feature depends on a speech engine that Firefox does not implement, so the microphone under Tools → Voice Typing is unavailable there. This is a Google limitation, not a Firefox bug, and it has not changed for years.
SnailText fixes it by working one layer down, at the operating system level, not inside the browser tab. Because it pastes text through the system clipboard like any other app, the browser you happen to be using is irrelevant. Firefox, Arc, Brave, Vivaldi, LibreWolf: voice typing into Google Docs works identically in all of them. If Firefox is your daily driver, this is the whole reason to install it.
Voice typing for Google Docs on PC and Mac: the download
Google Docs Voice Typing has no app to download; it lives inside the browser. That is convenient until you need it in Firefox, offline, or in a text field it does not cover, and then there is nothing to fall back to.
SnailText is a small desktop download for Windows PC and Mac. It is free to start, needs no account, and the compact speech model runs on your CPU or GPU. Once installed, the same hotkey dictates into Google Docs and into every other text field on your computer: Slack, Gmail, Notion, your terminal, the Notes app. Google Docs is just one of them. Writers and students in particular tend to run the same setup across Docs, Notion, and email.
When Google Docs voice typing is not working
If Voice Typing has stopped working, the usual causes are: you are in a browser Google does not support (Firefox, and most Chromium forks with the speech component stripped out), the microphone permission was revoked, or your internet dropped. Voice Typing cannot transcribe offline because the processing is server-side.
A locally-run tool sidesteps two of those three failure modes entirely. There is no server to reach, so a flaky connection or an offline flight does not stop it, and there is no browser dependency, so switching browsers changes nothing. You still grant microphone access once, but after that the speech model runs on your own machine.
When does this matter for Google Docs users
You use Firefox. Google's built-in Voice Typing supports Chrome, Edge, and Safari, but Firefox is not on the list per Google's own docs. SnailText is the Google Docs voice typing alternative that runs the same in all browsers because it operates at the OS level, not inside the browser.
You work with sensitive content. If your Google Docs drafts contain client information, internal strategy, legal work product, or anything where sending the audio to a third-party cloud is a problem, local processing solves it architecturally.
You need offline voice typing for Google Docs. On a plane, in a basement, on the road with spotty wifi. Built-in Voice Typing stops working without internet. SnailText keeps working because the model runs on your laptop.
You dictate into comments and chat. Built-in Voice Typing works in the document body only. SnailText pastes into the comment textbox, the suggestion thread, the chat sidebar, anywhere with a cursor.