SpeakribeDictation for Slack
Slack is where a working day quietly turns into hundreds of short messages. Speakribe types them for you. Hold a shortcut, say the message, and it appears in the composer, ready to read over and send.
Can someone review the PR before end of day?
Just pushed the fix, can you re-run the pipeline when you get a sec?
Why it helps here
No single Slack message is long enough to feel worth optimising, which is exactly why it goes unexamined. The cost is the total: a standup update, six thread replies, and three quick answers is real typing, spread thin enough to be invisible.
Better for the reader, not just the writer
Spoken messages tend to carry the context typed ones drop, because saying the extra sentence costs nothing. Fewer follow-up questions.
Threads and DMs alike
It types into whatever composer has focus: a channel, a thread, a DM, or the edit box on a message you are fixing.
Nothing routed through a server
Work conversations stay on your Mac. There is no transcription service in the middle, which is the part IT usually asks about.
Things people say into Slack
- “Just pushed the fix, can you re-run the pipeline when you get a sec?”
- “Yesterday I finished the checkout flow, today I'm on the webhook retry logic, no blockers.”
- “Not urgent, but when you're back could you take a look at the staging errors from last night?”
- “Agreed on option two. I'll write it up and share a doc before Thursday.”
Setting up for Slack
Slack is the app where the setup detail that matters is auto-submit, because Slack is the one place where sending immediately is usually what you want and occasionally a disaster.
Avoid Slack's own shortcut map
Slack binds a lot of chords, including several with Cmd and Shift. A modifier-only binding stays clear of all of them, which matters because a collision in Slack tends to open a switcher or a search box mid-sentence.
Put the cursor in the composer, not the channel
Clicking a channel in the sidebar does not focus the message box. Speakribe types into whatever has focus, so click the composer itself — otherwise Slack's own keyboard navigation swallows the text.
Think hard about auto-submit here
There is a setting that presses Enter once the text lands, and Slack is the app where it is most tempting. It is also the app where an unreviewed message is most public. If you turn it on, turn it on for DMs and not for the channel with three hundred people in it.
Add your workspace's names
Colleague surnames, project codenames, the internal tools nobody outside the company has heard of. Add them to the custom-words list once; they are the words that will otherwise come back subtly wrong in a message that gets read by everyone.
One dictation, start to finish
A standup update, spoken in about eighteen seconds. This is the message that gets typed as three words because typing the useful version costs a minute you would rather spend on the work.
Yesterday I finished the migration script and ran it against a copy of staging, which took about forty minutes and surfaced two rows with null timestamps that we'll need to decide about. Today I'm writing the rollback path before I touch production. The only thing blocking me is that I need someone with prod database access to be around when I run it, so if anyone's free after two, say so.
Yesterday I finished the migration script and ran it against a copy of staging, which took about forty minutes and surfaced two rows with null timestamps that we'll need to decide about. Today I'm writing the rollback path before I touch production. The only thing blocking me is that I need someone with prod database access to be around when I run it, so if anyone's free after two, say so.
- Three sentences from one continuous take, split where the speaking paused. Yesterday, today, blocked — the standup structure came out of how it was said, with no formatting spoken aloud.
- "prod" stayed "prod" rather than being expanded to "product". Common shop-talk abbreviations usually survive; the ones that do not are the company-specific ones, which is the custom-words list's job.
- "after two" came through as words, not "after 2". Numerals are inferred from context and the result is not always the one you would have typed — a detail worth knowing before you turn auto-submit on.
What it won't do in Slack
No spoken formatting
Saying "bullet point" or "bold that" types those words. Slack's own formatting shortcuts still work afterwards, but nothing you say aloud becomes markup.
It won't navigate Slack
You cannot switch channel, open a thread, add a reaction or start a huddle by voice. Speakribe fills the box you have already opened; everything about getting to that box is unchanged.
Auto-submit has no undo
If you enable it, the message goes the moment transcription finishes. Slack's edit window softens this, but an edited message still shows it was edited, in front of everyone. The default is off for a reason.
Questions people actually ask
- Does it work in Slack threads and DMs?
- Yes. Speakribe types into the focused field, so any Slack composer works the same way.
- Can I dictate formatting like bullet points?
- Speakribe produces clean punctuated prose. Slack's own formatting shortcuts still work on the text once it is there.
- Is it suitable for confidential work chat?
- Transcription never leaves your Mac and there is no Speakribe account or server, so nothing about the message is transmitted by us.
- Can it send the message automatically?
- Yes, there is an auto-submit setting, and you can choose whether it sends Enter or Cmd+Enter. It is off by default. Slack is the app where we would think hardest before enabling it, because the gap between finishing a sentence and sending it is the gap where you notice the tone is wrong.
- Will colleagues' names come out right?
- Common ones, usually. Unusual surnames and internal project names are the reliable misses, and both are fixable — add them to the custom-words list in settings and they stop being a problem.
Speakribe in other apps
Ready to stop typing?
One payment. Every future update included.