Use Flow hands-free

Last updated: September 2, 2026

Available on: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android

Hands-free mode lets Flow listen continuously without holding a key. Start dictating, speak naturally, and your text pastes when you're done — ideal for longer messages, emails, or anytime you want your hands off the keyboard.

How to start hands-free dictation

Mac & Windows

Start with a shortcut

  1. Place your cursor in any text field.

  2. Press your hands-free shortcut. Defaults: Fn + Space on Mac, Ctrl + Win + Space on Windows.

  3. Speak after the ping — Flow keeps listening without you holding any keys.

Note: On Macs without an Fn key, the backup defaults are Ctrl + Opt for push-to-talk and Ctrl + Opt + Space for hands-free.

Start from the Flow Bar

  1. Place your cursor in any text field.

  2. Click the Flow Bar at the center of your screen.

  3. Speak after the ping.

Note: The Flow Bar is hidden by default on new installs. To show it, turn on Settings → Flow Bar → "Show at all times."

Lock into hands-free from push-to-talk

While dictating with push-to-talk, double-tap your push-to-talk shortcut — Fn on Mac, Ctrl + Win on Windows — in quick succession to lock the session into hands-free.

Stop and paste your text

  1. Press your hands-free shortcut again, or click the stop (■) icon in the Flow Bar. Your transcript pastes into the active text field.

  2. Discard a recording instead by clicking the X (cancel) icon or pressing Esc (the default Dismiss shortcut on Mac and Windows).

Note: Clicking the Flow Bar does not stop a hands-free recording — use the stop or cancel icons, or your shortcut. During push-to-talk, clicking the Flow Bar does end the session.

Tip: To recover a dictation that didn't paste, use Paste Last Transcript — Cmd + Ctrl + V on Mac, Shift + Alt + Z on Windows.

Warning: Desktop sessions warn you at 19 minutes and stop automatically at the 20-minute maximum.

iOS

Keyboard shortcuts aren't available on iOS. Use tap-to-record instead:

  1. Open the Wispr Flow app.

  2. Tap into a text field so the cursor appears.

  3. Tap the microphone icon to start recording.

  4. Speak your text, then tap Stop to insert your transcript.

Tip: Siri can also trigger Flow, and phrases behave differently by group:

Start live transcription in the background, without opening the app: "Quick dictate to notes with Flow", "Save note with Flow", "Take Flow note", "Dictate with Flow", "Dictate to clipboard with Flow", "Quick dictate with Flow".

Open the Flow app, then begin dictation: "Create Flow note", "Open Flow note", "Create note with Flow".

Use Siri's own speech recognition — Siri asks "What should the note say?" and saves the answer as text: "Save Flow note", "Quick Flow note".

Android

On Android, dictate hands-free with the Flow Bubble:

  1. Tap a text field to open the on-screen keyboard. The Flow Bubble appears with it.

  2. Tap the Flow Bubble to start recording.

  3. Speak your text.

  4. Tap the Done button (checkmark icon) to stop and insert your transcript.

While transcription is processing, only Cancel is available. After a successful dictation, a copy-to-clipboard button appears next to the bubble for a few seconds.

Note: An idle bubble is invisible and taps pass through to the app underneath; it becomes visible and tappable once a text field is focused. While offline, bubble controls are greyed out and tapping the bubble does not start dictation. If the connection degrades mid-dictation, Flow shows "Taking longer than usual. Your audio is saved in the app." Bubble size is adjustable in Settings → Flow Bubble Size (0.7x–1.15x, default 1.0x) with a Reset button. Android dictation sounds cannot be turned off.

Tip: Long-press the Flow Bubble for hold-to-dictate mode — keep your finger on the bubble while speaking, then release to stop and insert. Cancel appears about 3 seconds into hold-to-dictate transcription.

Warning: Android sessions are limited to 5 minutes. About a minute before, you'll see "1 minute left before you reach the 5-minute limit." At 5 minutes the session stops and submits automatically — your audio is preserved and transcribed normally.

Reveal a snoozed Flow Bubble

If you snoozed the bubble by dragging it to the bottom of the screen, shake your device rapidly to bring it back early. Snooze lasts 10 minutes, after which the bubble returns automatically. This requires the Wispr Flow accessibility service to be enabled.

Note: Shake works only while the bubble is snoozed — not during recording, not when the bubble is hidden for other reasons (such as no focused text field), and not inside banking and financial apps. Snooze can't be started while Flow's accessibility service needs attention: you'll see "Snooze is unavailable while accessibility needs attention." If the accessibility connection breaks during snooze, the snooze is cancelled and the bubble reappears.

Press Enter without touching the keyboard

Say "press enter" at the end of your dictation and Flow presses the Enter key after pasting — useful for sending messages or submitting prompts hands-free. The words are stripped from your transcript and recognized only at the very end of a dictation; said mid-sentence, they appear as regular text.

Tip: The first time Flow detects "press enter," a one-time notification explains the feature. Tap Great to enable — Enter is not pressed for that first dictation. Tap Disable to keep "press enter" as regular text. Once enabled, manage it in Flow Hub → Settings → Experimental.

Change your hands-free shortcut

  1. Open Flow Hub, then go to Settings → General → Shortcuts → Change.

  2. Find the Hands-free mode row.

  3. Click the pencil icon, then press your key combination. To cancel without changing it, click Cancel (×), press Escape, or click outside the field.

  4. Remove a shortcut with the "Remove shortcut" trash icon next to the pencil. Removing your last hands-free binding persists across restarts; restore it by recording a new shortcut or clicking Reset to default at the bottom of the dialog.

  5. Click Done in the bottom-right to close the dialog. Changes save automatically.

  6. Test the new shortcut in a text field — if Flow starts listening, it's working.

You can assign multiple shortcuts per action, each with up to 3 keys.

Note: Shortcuts must include a modifier key or a mouse button, and can't mix the left and right version of the same modifier. Lone letters, numbers, or punctuation and reserved OS combos (e.g. Ctrl+A) are blocked — Flow shows "This shortcut is not allowed: …". Hard-reload combos are also reserved (Cmd+Shift+R on Mac; Ctrl+Shift+R and Ctrl+F5 on Windows). Roughly 60 Mac and 57 Windows OS shortcuts are blocked. Other errors: "Shortcut must contain 3 or fewer keys", "Shortcut cannot contain both left and right version of the same key", and "This shortcut is already in use" for a combo assigned to another action. Middle Click, Mouse 4–10, and an Aux button work alone or with keys (e.g. Ctrl + Mouse 4) on Mac and Windows; left-click and right-click can never be mapped.

Note: If your hands-free shortcut overlaps your push-to-talk shortcut, Flow warns: "Your Hands-free mode shortcut is a part of a Push-to-talk shortcut. This may lead to conflicts." Some Windows users receive a push-to-talk default of Ctrl + Shift or Ctrl + Alt instead of Ctrl + Win — check Settings → General → Shortcuts for your actual bindings.

FAQs

Why didn't my text paste after dictation?

Make sure your cursor stayed in a text field while dictating. Check Recent Activity in Flow — if your text appears there but not in your app, try a different app to see whether the issue is app-specific.

On Mac, if you dictated silence or the paste was suppressed, Flow shows a "Paste Failed" notice rather than overwriting your clipboard. Your first Cmd+V after that may paste nothing — press Cmd+V once more to restore what you had copied before dictating.

My custom shortcut isn't working. What should I check?

Confirm the shortcut isn't already used by your operating system or another app, then pick a different combination in Flow Hub → Settings → General → Shortcuts → Change. Test in a simple text editor like Notepad or TextEdit.

Does "press enter" work with punctuation?

Yes. If you say "Hello world. Press enter," your text pastes as "Hello world." with no extra period before Enter is pressed.

Do I need a dedicated hands-free shortcut?

No. Double-tapping your push-to-talk shortcut triggers hands-free mode from idle as well as mid-session, so a separate binding is optional. See Change your hands-free shortcut above to remove or restore one.

Why doesn't tapping the Flow Bubble waveform do anything during dictation on Android?

The waveform area is an indicator only and doesn't respond to taps or long-presses. Use the Done button (checkmark) to stop, or Cancel to discard.

Why doesn't clicking the middle of the Flow Bar stop a hands-free session?

The center of the Flow Bar is intentionally not clickable during dictation, so you can't interrupt a session by accident. Use the stop (■) icon to end and paste, the X (cancel) icon to discard, your hands-free shortcut, or Esc.

What happens if transcription or text insertion fails on Android?

If transcription fails, you'll see the toast "Failed to transcribe. Saved in the app." — tap Retry on the error pill. If transcription succeeds but insertion fails, tap Paste to insert it manually; dismissing the error keeps the text on your clipboard.

Why did Flow stop mid-dictation on its own?

Flow auto-stops a session for excessive duration, no audio detected, mic acquisition failure, or no internet. If Flow is still initializing, stopping, processing, or retrying when you press your shortcut, the press is ignored — wait for Flow to return to rest and try again.

Limitations and notes

  • Hands-free lock mode: Available on Mac, Windows, and Android only. On iOS, tap the mic to start and Stop to finish.

  • iOS keyboard shortcuts: Hardware keyboard shortcuts are not supported on iOS. Use tap-to-record, the Action Button, Shortcuts, widgets, or Siri instead.

  • iOS switchback behavior: On newer iOS versions you may need to manually swipe back to your app after triggering Flow. Flow shows a screen reading "Flow is on — You can start dictating now. Swipe right across the bottom edge to continue." This screen also appears whenever Flow doesn't recognize the app you came from.

  • Android Flow Bubble availability: The bubble appears only when the on-screen (soft) keyboard is visible — not with an external keyboard only — and is hidden in banking and financial apps and in password, phone-number, and numeric fields. It remains available in notification-reply boxes and in browser URL bars (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Brave, Samsung Internet, Vivaldi, DuckDuckGo and other major browsers). Where direct text insertion isn't supported (such as some Slack fields), a Copy button appears so you can paste manually.

Still stuck?

Reach out to our support team if:

  • Hands-free dictation doesn't start after pressing your shortcut, even after restarting Flow.

  • Your transcript appears in Recent Activity but never pastes into any app.

  • You see an error message not covered above.

Include your platform and OS version, the shortcut you're using, and the apps where you've tested. Most hands-free issues are resolved in one reply.