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Text Reader Narrator

How to turn your voice into text on iPhone

Open the Transcribe tab in Text Reader Narrator, tap the microphone and talk. Words appear while you're still speaking; tap again to stop, then Copy, Share or Save it. It works well for a quick voice memo you want in writing, and there's no usage limit on dictation at all.

2 min read · Updated 2026-10-06

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When a dictation screen helps

The iPhone keyboard already has a microphone key. A separate screen earns its place when you want something bigger and editable for a longer thought: a walking to-do list, lecture notes, the rough draft of a message, an idea you want to keep and listen back to.

Steps: dictate and keep the text

  1. Open the Transcribe tab, titled Speech to Text, which says Tap the microphone to start transcribing.
  2. Tap the round microphone button. First time, allow Microphone and Speech Recognition access.
  3. Talk normally while Listening... shows. Words appear as you go, and sometimes get corrected as the sentence runs on.
  4. Tap the microphone again to stop, or just let it catch a stretch of silence and stop itself.
  5. Fix anything that came out wrong by typing straight into the text.
  6. Tap Copy to paste it elsewhere, Share to send it, Save to keep it as a document, or Clear to start over.

Why does it ask for two permissions?

  • Microphone: hears you while recording, and only inside the Transcribe tab.
  • Speech Recognition: turns the recording into words with Apple's own recogniser. That means what you say is sent off to Apple's speech service, not kept purely on-device.

Said no to one of those by mistake? The tab offers Open Settings right there so you can flip it back on without digging through iOS.

Listen back to what you dictated

Anything you Save lands in Documents. Open it there and tap Start Reading to hear it back in your chosen voice — a quick way to proofread a draft by ear instead of by eye.

Limits worth knowing

  • It recognises whatever language your iPhone is set to; there's no language picker inside the tab itself.
  • It transcribes the live microphone only — not a voice memo, not a recording, not an audio file already sitting in Files.
  • No speaker labels, no timestamps, so it's not built for meeting minutes with multiple voices.
  • A long pause ends the recording on its own; tap the microphone again to pick back up.

Questions and answers

Is this speech to text free?
Yes, with no cap on how much you dictate. The 5,000-character daily allowance belongs to a different feature entirely: reading text aloud in the Reader.
Does dictation work offline?
Not reliably. It runs on Apple's speech recognition, which can send your audio off to Apple, so plan on having a connection when you use it.
Can I dictate in another language?
It follows your device's language. To dictate in another one, change the iPhone's language first — there's no per-session switch.
Can it transcribe a voice memo?
No. It only transcribes live speech straight from the microphone.

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