What are the most popular voice typing extensions for Chrome?

Tactiq is the most used voice-related extension on the Chrome Web Store, with 1,000,000 users ¹. It is a meeting notes tool, though, not a way to type by voice. The most used extension that types what you say into any text box is Voice In, with 700,000 users ². Our dataset covers 20 ³ extensions, each read from its store listing.

The top of the list is split between meeting tools and plain voice typing

The chart below ranks the most used extensions by the users their store listing shows.

Two kinds of product share the top five. Meeting notes extensions record and transcribe calls. Browser extensions for voice typing put your speech into web pages, email and chat boxes. The tables below split the list by kind so you can compare like with like.

Voice In leads the extensions made for typing by voice

Eight of the extensions in the data are plain browser extensions for voice typing. Voice In is first, at 700,000 users ². Next come Voice Control for ChatGPT, at 400,000 users ⁴, and Speech to Text (Voice Recognition), at 300,000 users ⁵.

Look at the stars as well as the users. Voice In is rated well above the other large voice typing extensions, and it has far more ratings than they do. Voice Control for ChatGPT and Speech to Text (Voice Recognition) sit lower, and Dictation for Gmail, with 100,000 users ⁶, has the lowest rating of any extension in the data. A large audience and a high rating do not always go together.

Meeting notes extensions have the biggest audiences and the best ratings

Four extensions in the data are meeting notes tools: Tactiq, Read AI, Fireflies.ai and Krisp. Read AI has 400,000 users ¹¹, Fireflies.ai has 100,000 users ¹², and Krisp has 50,000 users ¹³.

These tools turn spoken conversation into text, so they belong in a list of speech to text extensions. They do a different job from dictation, however. They listen to a call and write notes afterward. They do not type your words into a field as you speak.

Dictation apps and voice notes tools are small in Chrome

Five extensions are listed as dictation apps: Voicy, Voice Notebook, Spokenly, Dictation Daddy and Contextli. The largest, Voicy, has 10,000 users ¹⁴, and the smallest, Contextli, has 928 users ¹⁵.

Many dictation products work mainly as desktop or phone apps, so their Chrome extension may be only a companion. A small Chrome audience does not show that a product is small. The two voice notes extensions, AudioPen at 7,000 users ¹⁹ and Voicenotes at 6,000 users ²⁰, follow the same pattern. Nabla, the one medical and professional extension, has 20,000 users ²¹.

What these numbers do and do not tell you

Every figure comes from the user count and rating shown on each extension's Chrome Web Store page. Keep these limits in mind:

• Rounded counts. The store rounds large figures. A listing that shows a round figure may hide a somewhat different true count.
• Installs, not people. The store counts installs that are switched on, whether or not they are used. The same person on two computers counts twice.
• Active use is unknown. An extension that someone installed once and never opened still counts.
• Ratings differ in weight. A rating from a few thousand reviews says more than one from a handful. Voice Typing Notepad has a perfect score from only a few ratings, and the table shows how few. Treat scores based on few ratings with caution.
• Chrome only. Nothing here covers dictation built into your computer or phone, or apps you install outside the browser. Those reach far more people than any extension.
• Our list is a registry. The dataset includes extensions in our market registry that have a Chrome Web Store listing. Extensions that are not mainly for voice input or transcription are left out, and a tool missing from the table may simply not be in the registry.

What this means for choosing how to dictate in Chrome

Start with the job you need done.

1. Typing into web pages, email or chat. Choose among the browser extensions for voice typing. Voice In has the largest audience and a strong rating among them. Check the rating count before you trust a high score, and read what permissions the extension asks for before you install it.
2. Notes from calls. Choose a meeting notes tool such as Tactiq. These are the most used and best rated extensions in the data, but they are built for meetings, not for dictating a draft.
3. Dictation across every app. A Chrome extension works only inside the browser. If you also write in documents, code editors and messaging apps, a system-wide tool fits better. Yap is ours, and it is an on-device dictation app for Mac and Windows, which is a different category from the extensions above. The guide to speech to text in Chrome covers the built-in options, and a free dictation tool in the browser is at online dictation.

Popularity is a reasonable first filter, since an extension with many installs and many ratings has been tried by many people. It is not proof that the extension is accurate, private or right for your accent and language. Test one or two on your own writing for a day before you settle.

Where to see more

• The full dataset lists every extension with its users, kind, stars and rating count.
• Compare dictation products in the market overview.
• Apps and browsers is our overview of dictation across apps and browsers.
• Speech to text in Chrome is the guide to using it.