Terminal dictation

Use aria dictate to record one utterance and copy the transcribed words. Complete setup and keep the background service running. On Linux, the service also keeps copied text available for pasting. It runs with your graphical desktop session so Aria can reach the clipboard.

Copy a sentence

aria dictate \
  --mode copy

Say a short sentence, then pause. By default, 1.5 seconds of silence ends the recording. After processing finishes, paste into an empty text field and check the words.

Copying replaces the clipboard.

Plain aria dictate uses your saved output setting. --mode copy chooses the clipboard for this recording without changing that setting.

Stop by hand

For a longer pause or a recording you want to end yourself, run:

aria dictate \
  --mode copy \
  --toggle

Speak, then press Esc when the terminal shows the stop prompt. Aria stops recording, finishes transcribing, and copies the text.

Without --toggle, silence ends the recording. With it, Auto-stop still ends the recording once you stop speaking, after 10 seconds by default. Change it under Settings → Dictation, or from the terminal:

aria settings show dictation.auto_stop_ms       # show the setting
aria settings set dictation.auto_stop_ms 20000  # stop after 20 seconds of silence
aria settings set dictation.auto_stop_ms 0      # stop on Esc or a second run

Recordings stop after ten minutes at most.

Insert into an app

On a Mac, hotkey dictation is the easiest way to speak into another app. A command launched in Terminal starts with Terminal focused. Insertion requires Accessibility access, and the intended app and field must stay focused.

--mode insert types the completed text. --stream types finalized segments while you speak. With Copy output or a speech model that can’t stream, Aria delivers the whole text once you stop instead. If you switch to another app or field, Aria keeps recording. It types what you said once you’re back in that field. Clicking or typing in that field stops the dictation, in apps that report their text cursor.

--mode insert-or-copy copies the text when insertion can’t begin. If you stop while away, it copies the words Aria hasn’t typed yet. --mode insert keeps those words only in history, when saving is on.

On Linux, hotkey dictation pastes into the focused app. --mode insert pastes the completed text. --stream waits too, since Aria pastes once recording stops.

To save the text to history without typing it, add --history-only.

On a Mac, Aria adds a space where the text needs one. Dictating “Hello.” and then “How are you” types “Hello. How are you”.

Clean up text

To tidy what you say, turn on Settings → Dictation → Clean up text, or run:

aria settings set dictation.cleanup.enabled on

Aria then drops “um”, “uh”, and repeated words, with either delivery setting.

With Deliver set to After recording stops, Aria also applies spoken corrections to the completed text. “Meet me at 3, actually 4” becomes “meet me at 4”. “Send it to Ali, scratch that, to Sara” becomes “Send it to Sara”. This handles only simple, unambiguous corrections within a clause, in English. More complex corrections stay as spoken.

Clean up text turns all of these on or off. To turn off one of them, set it in your settings file:

[dictation.cleanup]
enabled = true
fillers = true      # drops "um", "uh", and repeated words
backtrack = false   # keeps spoken corrections as you said them

Use a local model

A local language model can also fix punctuation, capitals, and spoken corrections. You run the model in a server on your own Mac, such as Ollama. Aria sends the text only to that server.

A cloud model sends your text off your Mac. Pick a model that runs on your Mac, such as qwen2.5:3b:

ollama pull qwen2.5:3b

Then add these lines to your settings file, and restart Aria:

[provider]
endpoint = "http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1/chat/completions"

[dictation.cleanup.llm]
model = "qwen2.5:3b"

The model runs only when both of these are true:

Clean up text is on.
Deliver is set to After recording stops.

To turn the model off and keep these lines, add enabled = false under [dictation.cleanup.llm].

A smaller model, such as qwen2.5:1.5b, misses most spoken corrections.

If the model doesn’t answer within 3 seconds, or adds words you didn’t say, Aria types the text without it. To check the setup, run aria doctor and look for the cleanup model line.

For names Aria regularly spells differently, try Project vocabulary. If recording fails, use Troubleshooting.