How do you use voice input in VS Code?

VS Code has built-in dictation for three kinds of text box: the chat input, a writable editor, and a terminal prompt. Each one starts from a button or a Command Palette command, and each turns your speech into text at the cursor. Built-in dictation is experimental, and it is not available on every computer. This page covers how to start it in each place, what it needs, and the exceptions. For the wider picture, see our guide to voice input for Claude Code and AI coding tools.

Dictate a chat prompt with the microphone button

Open the chat view or the Agents window, then select the microphone button in the chat input ¹. The shortcut is Command+I on a Mac, and Ctrl+I on Windows and Linux. Speak your prompt. Select the button again, or press the shortcut, to stop and keep the text.

Dictation puts the words in the input and stops there. It does not send the request ². Read what appeared, fix any misheard file or function names, and send the prompt yourself. Press Escape to cancel a dictation and remove its text from the input.

The first time you use it, VS Code shows an introduction next to the chat input. You can see it again by running Chat: Dictate: Show Introduction from the Command Palette.

Dictate into an editor with a command

To dictate into a file you are editing, run Voice: Start Dictation in Editor from the Command Palette ³. The shortcut is Option+Command+V on a Mac, and Ctrl+Alt+V on Windows and Linux. A microphone control appears at the cursor while dictation is active. Stop it with the control, or run Voice: Stop Dictation in Editor.

The same command works in other rich inputs, such as the commit message box in Source Control and pull request comment fields. Check the words in code comments before you commit them, since speech recognition can get identifiers wrong.

Dictate at a terminal prompt

A coding agent usually runs in a terminal, so dictation at the terminal prompt matters for agent work. Run Voice: Start Dictation in Terminal from the Command Palette, and VS Code's dictation is active at the terminal prompt ⁴. The docs say terminal dictation adapts speech for command-line input, so it removes ordinary punctuation and converts spoken symbol names. To stop, run Voice: Stop Dictation in Terminal or use the microphone control. It inserts the final text at the prompt.

If your AI agent runs in VS Code's integrated terminal, the built-in option covers that prompt. If you run the agent in a separate terminal application, VS Code's command does not apply, and you need a system-wide dictation tool instead. Our answer on the best dictation tool for Claude Code covers how terminal paste differs between tools.

Check your computer and your data before you rely on it

On a supported desktop platform, VS Code downloads a speech recognition model the first time you use dictation. After the download completes, speech recognition works locally and offline ⁵. The first download needs an internet connection, and the rest of the time your speech stays on the device.

The web version works differently. In VS Code for the Web, dictation streams your microphone audio to a Microsoft cloud service for transcription ⁶. If your code is confidential and you want the audio to stay local, use the desktop version of VS Code.

There are two exceptions to know about. First, built-in dictation is not available on Intel-based Mac computers ⁷. On those machines, install the VS Code Speech extension instead. Second, Microsoft labels built-in dictation as experimental and says it might change or be removed ⁸, so check the settings and the command names after an update.

What to do

1. Use the microphone button in the chat input for prompts to an agent or a chat assistant.
2. Use Voice: Start Dictation in Editor for code comments, docs and commit messages, and check identifiers before you save.
3. Use Voice: Start Dictation in Terminal for a command or a prompt typed at a terminal prompt.
4. If you are on an Intel Mac, install the VS Code Speech extension instead.

VS Code's voice pages also describe a separate Voice Mode, a spoken conversation with an agent. It is not the same as dictation, and the VS Code voice page explains the difference. If you use Claude Code rather than VS Code's chat, its own /voice command has different requirements, covered in our page on why Claude Code voice is not working. For speaking code structure rather than prose, see our guide to voice coding and the term voice coding.