Keyboard navigation and screen reader accessibility

Available on: Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. Support and known accessibility gaps differ by platform.

Use keyboard navigation and screen readers with Flow, and reduce animation through your device's settings. None of these behaviors require a separate Flow setting.

Navigate with a keyboard

Desktop instructions apply to Mac and Windows. Cmd/Ctrl means Cmd on Mac or Ctrl on Windows.

Action	Shortcut
Move between interactive elements	Tab; Shift+Tab to move back.
Activate a focused button or tab	Space or Enter.
Move between Hub sidebar or Settings pages	Option+↑ / Option+↓ on Mac; Alt+↑ / Alt+↓ on Windows.
Move between tabs	← / →.
Go back or forward	Cmd/Ctrl+[ or Cmd/Ctrl+] when navigation history is available.
Open Hub feedback	Cmd/Ctrl+/, outside a text field.
Submit a feedback or contact dialog	Cmd/Ctrl+Enter, once required fields are complete.

Cmd/Ctrl+Enter submits only text-entry feedback and contact dialogs, not every dialog. Page-level navigation pauses while a dialog, popover or feature tip is open; sidebar, history and meeting-list navigation also pause while you type in a text field.

Sidebar: stepping stops at the first and last visible primary page, skips hidden pages, and excludes Settings, Help, Referral and Team.
Settings: page stepping stops at either end. Settings sidebar buttons support Tab and Space/Enter and announce the current page, but not a navigation or tab grouping.
Tabs: a tab bar is one Tab stop; arrows stop at either end and skip disabled tabs. Insights/Stats also accepts ←/→ when no tab has focus, except while typing or when an overlay is open. Tabs announce selected and disabled states, but Stats does not announce which content belongs to each tab. A supplied disabled-tab reason is announced; otherwise the “Coming soon” explanation is visual only and keyboard navigation cannot reach it.

Dictation history

Press ↑ / ↓, or k / j, to highlight a row. Enter copies a successful transcript, as does clicking the row; Enter on a row control activates that control instead. Escape or changing the search query clears the highlight.

For unsuccessful rows, Enter retries or recovers only while audio remains available: Empty/Error recordings must be under 14 days old and at least 5 seconds long; Dismissed/Processing recordings must be under 14 days old. Otherwise Enter does nothing.

History focus and announcements

Each row is a Tab stop. Arrowing to or focusing a row reveals its controls, which stay available while More is open: Copy appears only for successful transcripts; Feedback and More always remain. Tab traverses a row's controls before the next row; Shift+Tab from a row reaches the previous row's More button, and from the first row it leaves the list. Arrow movement scrolls the highlighted row into view; hovering changes the highlight without moving focus or scrolling.

Screen readers announce the Dictation history region, date-named lists such as “Today,” and each row's time, transcript and instruct badge when present. The highlighted row is identified as current, and hidden controls are not read, so other rows remain single items. The first date heading sits beside search, outside the region; its list still has the date as its name.

Meetings and attendees

Press ↑ / ↓ to select a meeting and Enter to open it. These shortcuts pause while a note reader, Ask chat or feedback dialog is open.

Recording and search: Cmd/Ctrl+N starts a recording; Cmd/Ctrl+F or / opens search; Shift+Tab focuses the most recent recorder; Cmd/Ctrl+] reopens the last opened meeting.
Open notes: j moves to the previous note and k to the next. Escape or Cmd/Ctrl+[ returns to the list. When editing, the first Escape goes to the editor and the next exits; an Ask chat rename field handles its own Escape.

Meeting-list selection

Your upcoming schedule shows three meetings at a time, grouped under day overlines such as Today and Tomorrow. Arrow keys move through every meeting currently in the list, including upcoming meetings you reveal with Show more. Choosing Show less moves the selection to the last meeting still on screen.

If your calendar is not connected, upcoming meetings are not listed and the selection moves to your most recent past meeting; with no past meetings, the arrow keys and Enter do nothing.

Attendee list

The attendee button is named “Attendees,” without a total count, and opening it focuses a labelled dialog containing the roster, grouped by guest company A–Z, then “Other,” then your company, with a person count per group. Close the roster with Escape, a click outside it, or by activating Attendees again. While it is open, j/k note navigation pauses, and Escape closes only the roster, not the note.

The meeting date sits inside the attendee pill in the note header and reads “Today,” “Tomorrow,” “Yesterday,” or a plain date such as “Sep 30”; it does not change while a meeting runs, and hovering shows the full date and time. There is no attendee button without named attendees, and with neither attendees nor a date the pill is absent.

Help, search and dialogs

Open the Hub Help menu

Tab to Help.
Press Space or Enter to open it; focus stays on the Help button.
Tab through the options, which skip section headings.
Press Enter to select an option.

Help is announced as a dialog but contains no keyboard or screen-reader navigation. Escape closes Help from anywhere in the Hub and returns focus to its button; clicking outside or choosing an option closes it without returning focus. Closed Help content is hidden from screen readers. During setup, Help opens feedback directly rather than a menu.

Search fields and match navigation

In history, Cmd/Ctrl+F or / focuses the labelled search field when you are not typing or using an overlay, and it announces loading. Escape clears and collapses search without closing the notepad; speaker-assignment search stays open after clearing.

In the notepad's Transcript and Summary tabs, once a search of at least two non-space characters begins, Enter or ↓ moves to the next match and Shift+Enter or ↑ to the previous one; other search fields do not use these match shortcuts. The current/total counter and navigation buttons are labelled, and navigation buttons appear only with matches. With matches, the clear button is hidden, so use Escape to clear.

The labelled search toggle announces open/closed state and is the keyboard entry point when the field is collapsed. A collapsed field is skipped by Tab and screen readers, and a disabled search collapses and cannot be focused. Focusing search selects existing text. With an empty query, toggling or leaving the field collapses it; with text, the toggle refocuses it and leaving it keeps it open.

The link popup in rich-text editors

In the snippet editor, Cmd/Ctrl+K opens the link popup, announced as a dialog named “Insert link.” With the cursor inside an existing link, it opens prefilled with that link's text and URL and offers a Remove button.

Tab and Shift+Tab cycle only through the popup's own fields and buttons, and focus returns to it if it moves outside. Enter applies the link while you are in the Text or URL field, and activates a focused Cancel or Remove button. Escape closes only the popup, leaving the editor and your unsaved draft open. Escape and Enter are ignored while you are composing text with an input method.

Hub dialogs and dismissal

Hub dialogs announce their title and move focus inside, unless an input already received focus. Tab and Shift+Tab wrap between available controls, skipping hidden ones; with none, focus stays on the dialog. An open menu or picker can temporarily handle its own Tab navigation.

Escape or clicking the backdrop closes a dismissible dialog and restores previous focus if that control remains available. A non-dismissible dialog stays open and still prevents Escape from acting behind it. If a backdrop click leaves focus outside a still-open dialog, Tab returns it inside. When a Hub dialog is open above an older modal, the older modal does not handle Escape until the Hub dialog closes.

Closed Hub dialogs are no longer announced. Some older dialogs lack a dialog announcement, initial focus, Tab containment and focus restoration, their closed content may remain readable, and their Escape and backdrop dismissal can be disabled.

Feature tips and setup prompts

Feature-tip cards move focus to the card on opening and each step change, then return focus on closing; Tab does not loop inside a card or return to the card itself. Use the card's Dismiss, Back or Next controls: Escape does not dismiss these tips, and clicking the backdrop dismisses them only when backdrop dismissal is allowed.

The setup prompt “This is the Flow Bar” is not announced as a named dialog. Activate Continue to advance, since Escape and backdrop clicks do not dismiss it.

Menus and pickers

Newer menus announce menu items and support arrow navigation. Some older menus use Tab instead, with options later in the Tab order rather than immediately after the trigger; Escape closes them. Activating a folder chip again closes its folder picker.

Older settings pickers have no keyboard-reachable opening control or dropdown-state announcement, and do not announce the highlighted choice, option count or “No matches”; unavailable choices are announced as disabled. A searchable picker's field is the exception: focusing it opens the list, and opening the list focuses the field. Once open, ↑/↓ wraps through choices, Enter or Tab selects the highlight, and Escape closes. In a multi-select picker, Backspace in an empty search removes the last selection.

Newer searchable pickers are announced as combo boxes with open/closed state, options and “No matches” announcements. Tab reaches the text field, not its labelled opening arrow, and some fields may lack a spoken name; ↓ moves the highlight and Enter selects it. Escape first closes an open list; with the list closed, Escape clears typed text but keeps your selection, and if the field is already empty the surrounding dialog or panel handles Escape. Multi-select entries have focus indicators and “Remove <name>” buttons, and Backspace in an empty field removes the last entry. Close the suggestion list before navigating selected entries with a screen reader.

Use a screen reader

Flow is tested with VoiceOver on Mac, NVDA and JAWS on Windows, and TalkBack on Android; other screen readers are untested. Navigation landmarks, the active page and supported interactive states help orient you, and decorative images are hidden.

Desktop navigation has two named sidebar areas and one page heading. When a page is locked for dictation, its title and unlock action remain accessible, but its tabs, content and header actions do not.

Desktop notifications and brief messages

Flow Bar notification close buttons are announced as “Dismiss notification”; the maximum recording-length check-in uses “Dismiss.” Hovering pauses a notification countdown and moving away resumes it; letting a notification expire is not the same as dismissing it.

Brief toast messages announce themselves without moving focus: errors interrupt immediately, while success, information and progress messages wait for a pause. Toasts disappear after about three seconds, have no close button, and Escape does not dismiss them.

A labelled toast action, such as Undo, supports Tab, Space and Enter. When the whole toast is the action instead, Tab reaches it but only Enter activates it; Space does nothing, and its explanation is hover-only. Activating either action dismisses the toast early.

Desktop switches and icon buttons

Settings switches support Tab and Space, not Enter, and announce checked/unchecked checkboxes. Disabled switches are announced as disabled and skipped by Tab, but their explanation is hover-only.

Standard icon buttons support Tab, Space and Enter, and disabled ones are announced and skipped. Some icon buttons, including close controls without a label, have no spoken name, and toggle-style icon highlights and busy states are not consistently announced.

iOS

Language rows announce the language name and selection, not the flag emoji, and search filters the list. The keyboard's writing-style pill announces “Writing style” and its current value when available.

Keyboard controls have labels for Cancel transcription, Settings, Undo/Redo, Edit last dictation, Add to dictionary, Word saved and Start Flow; only the visible Add to dictionary or Word saved control is announced. Error options include a hint, and Service incident includes the incident message. The main dictation label changes with its state, and Start Flow and dictation controls identify that they start audio.

Turning the ABC keyboard on or off from the keyboard menu drawer shows a confirmation — “Wispr ABC keyboard enabled” or “Wispr ABC keyboard disabled” — which VoiceOver announces. It fades after a couple of seconds, you can tap it to dismiss it, and the rest of the drawer stays usable meanwhile.

Key labels, the mode-switch keys (123, #+= and ABC) and key press callouts stay at a fixed size and do not follow your accessibility text size setting.

Android

TalkBack announces bottom-navigation tabs and Dictionary controls, including add, edit, delete, search, and — for enterprise users — the All, Personal and Shared with team filters. Dictionary Edit and Delete labels belong to swipe-revealed actions rather than persistent per-row buttons: swipe right to edit or left to delete. Drawer items Report an issue, Share feedback, Settings and Account can be announced twice.

In setup, the static accessibility walkthrough image has a description, but looping videos do not, and the shortcut-error icon and its screenshot are announced as “Image.” The separate “Flow can't insert text” card has readable guidance to turn on accessibility for Flow in Settings, plus an Open Settings button.

Reduce motion

Flow follows your system preference, including the iOS processing spinner and the swipe-back hint.

Mac: System Settings → Accessibility → Display → Reduce Motion.
Windows: Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects → turn Animation effects off.
iOS: Settings → Accessibility → Motion → Reduce Motion.

Desktop reduced motion varies by surface rather than stopping all animation. Feature-tip movement and resizing follow the preference, but card fades, content changes and Back-button transitions may remain. Meeting processing animation follows it, while dictation, command and instruct processing indicators, switches, dropdowns and toasts keep animating. Try It Yourself setup prompts stop staged key animations, but their sliding, pointing and fading effects remain.

Where the iOS first-launch introduction includes a video, Reduce Motion skips it and makes Get Started available immediately. The same happens if the video cannot load.

If Mac shortcuts stop working

Secure Keyboard Entry in another app or a password field can block Flow's shortcuts, including Fn+Space and Escape-to-cancel; hold-to-talk still works. Flow does not show a notice naming the blocking app. Password-field blocks can be brief, and Secure Keyboard Entry also protects your Mac while it is locked or asleep.

Warning: Save your work before quitting apps or logging out.

After each step, try Fn+Space outside a password field. Stop when the shortcut responds; otherwise continue.

Click away from any password field.
Quit and restart the app holding Secure Keyboard Entry; if you use 1Password, quit and restart it.
Restart Flow if shortcuts stopped after you closed a Flow password-entry window, which can leave the block active.
Lock and unlock your Mac if the block remains after the app has quit, since quitting it again will not clear it.
Log out of your Mac and back in if the block persists.

Current accessibility gaps

Hub controls: the sidebar toggle, account panel, notifications controls and stats bar are not fully keyboard-accessible, and window minimize, maximize and close controls lack keyboard access and spoken names. Account, Notifications, Invite team and Refer a friend buttons do have spoken names.
Account panel: Download mobile, Manage account and Manage team require a mouse; Get Flow Pro and Refer a friend are keyboard-reachable. Closed panel content can remain available to screen readers.
Tooltips: Hub tooltips, including collapsed-sidebar hints, are hover-only and are not announced with their controls, and hidden tooltip text may remain readable. Collapsed sidebar item labels remain available, but the logo and plan badge are hidden from screen readers.
Lists and statistics: Notes selection changes may not be announced when the list lacks focus. The stats bar is not a Tab stop, and its loading and updated values are not announced automatically.
Dictionary: search has a spoken name and open/closed state, but its loading indicator is not announced. Sort has no spoken name and changing sort order requires a mouse. Selecting rows replaces search, sort and refresh with a labelled bulk-action toolbar of keyboard-accessible buttons.
Settings updates: checking, downloading, restart, error and up-to-date states are conveyed only by an unnamed icon and hover tooltip. The button is disabled while checking or downloading, and while an organization-managed schedule prevents another check.
Flow Bar menu: rows cannot be reached or activated by keyboard, submenus open on hover, and only an outside mouse click dismisses the menu — not Escape.

Still need help?

Contact support if a control remains unreachable, a screen reader does not announce a needed action, or Mac shortcuts still fail after the recovery steps. Include your platform, device, screen reader, affected control and what you tried.