Voice Dictation for Zoom Chat and Meeting Notes on Mac with Hearsy

Zoom meetings generate a lot of text work -- chat messages during calls, summaries afterward, follow-up emails, prep notes before the next one. Hearsy lets you dictate all of that instead of typing it. Press a hotkey, speak, and your words appear in Zoom's chat, in a document for meeting notes, or in any other text field on your Mac. Hearsy runs entirely on your device and transcribes in under 200 milliseconds, so your text appears before the conversation moves on.

Step-by-step setup

1. 1

   Join or open Zoom on your Mac

   Launch Zoom and join a meeting, or open the app to compose a message. Hearsy works with Zoom's chat window, the compose area for direct messages, and any other text field in the app.

2. 2

   Click into the text field where you want to type

   Place your cursor in Zoom's in-meeting chat, a channel message, a direct message, or any text input. Hearsy pastes text wherever your cursor is active, so it works with every text field in Zoom.

3. 3

   Press your Hearsy hotkey to start recording

   Trigger Hearsy with your configured keyboard shortcut (default: Fn twice or a custom hotkey). A small recording indicator appears in your menu bar to confirm it's listening.

4. 4

   Speak your message naturally

   Talk at your normal pace. Dictate a chat message, a question for the group, meeting notes, or a follow-up summary. Hearsy handles punctuation and capitalization automatically.

5. 5

   Press the hotkey again to finish

   Tap the hotkey once more. Hearsy transcribes your speech locally on your Mac, optionally polishes it with AI enhancement, and pastes the result into Zoom's text field. Hit Enter to send or keep editing.

Why use Hearsy for Zoom?

Important clarification: Hearsy is not a meeting transcription tool. It does not record or transcribe Zoom calls. Zoom already has its own AI Companion for live meeting transcription and summaries. What Hearsy does is let you dictate text into Zoom's chat window, compose meeting summaries after a call ends, write follow-up messages, and prepare notes before meetings -- all by speaking instead of typing.

During a Zoom call, typing in the chat while someone is talking splits your attention. You're watching the screen, listening, and trying to type a response at the same time. Speaking is faster and more natural. With Hearsy, you press a hotkey, say what you want to type, press the hotkey again, and the text appears in the chat box. The whole process takes a few seconds, and you never take your eyes off the meeting.

After meetings, there's often a pile of follow-up work: summarizing decisions, sending action items, drafting emails to attendees. Hearsy lets you speak through these while the discussion is still fresh. The optional AI enhancement cleans up filler words and structures your thoughts, so the output reads like you carefully typed it. Since everything is processed locally on your Mac, your meeting content stays private.

When to use voice dictation in Zoom

Tips for better results

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  During meetings, draft your chat messages with Hearsy before the topic changes. Speaking a response takes 2-3 seconds versus 10-15 seconds of typing, so you can contribute without missing what's being said.

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  After a meeting ends, immediately open a notes app or document and dictate your summary while the discussion is fresh. You'll capture details and action items you'd forget by the time you sit down to type them.

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  Enable AI enhancement when composing follow-up emails after meetings. It removes filler words and false starts, turning your spoken recap into a clean, professional message ready to send.

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  Use Hearsy for pre-meeting prep by dictating your agenda items, talking points, or questions into a note. Speaking through your thoughts helps you organize them faster than outlining by hand.

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  When someone asks a question in Zoom chat that needs a detailed answer, use Hearsy to dictate your response. Spoken explanations naturally include more context than what you'd type under time pressure.

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  Switch to the Whisper engine if you're in multilingual meetings where you need to type messages in languages other than English. It supports 99+ languages with accurate transcription.