Getting started on Windows

Dictate is a tray app on Windows. It has no main window. You hold a key and speak and release the key and the words appear in the app that has focus. This guide takes you from the download to your first dictated sentence on Windows 10 or 11 (64 bit).

Unzip the download

Download the Windows zip from the download page. Right click it and choose Extract All and pick a folder you keep such as Documents or the Desktop. The zip holds one folder named Dictate with Dictate.exe inside and the files it needs next to it. Keep Dictate.exe inside that folder. There is no installer and no account to create.

Run Dictate.exe past SmartScreen

Double click Dictate.exe. The first run shows the SmartScreen message Windows protected your PC because the build is not code signed. Click More info and then Run anyway. Windows remembers the choice for this file and every later start opens without the message.

Windows asks for no permission after that. There is no Microphone or Accessibility step like on macOS. The microphone works at once and the hotkeys work while any app has focus.

The tray icon

After the first launch Dictate sits in the system tray at the bottom right of the screen as a small microphone.

Click the icon to see the menu. It holds these entries in this order. Start listening or Stop listening toggles hands free dictation. History opens the window with your last 100 transcripts. Settings opens the Settings window. Enter license jumps to the License group of Settings. Quit closes Dictate.

The first dictation downloads the model

Dictate turns speech into text with a Whisper model that runs on your computer. Nothing is bundled with the app so the first dictation downloads the model once. The default is the small model at 461.1 MB.

Hold the Right Ctrl key for the first time and Dictate shows a dialog. It names the model and its size and says that it downloads from huggingface.co into the Dictate folder on this computer. Click Download. A progress bar shows the bytes and a Cancel button stops the download and removes the partial files. Once the model is on disk Dictate loads it with no network call on every later launch.

Dictate your first sentence

Click into a text field in any app. Hold the Right Ctrl key. A small dark pill appears near the bottom of the screen and reads Listening. Speak a sentence at a normal pace. Release the key. The pill reads Transcribing for a moment and then the sentence appears in the field with a capital first letter and a period at the end.

What to read next

The Hotkeys and modes guide explains hands free dictation and how to change the keys and the two insertion modes. The Vocabulary and replacements guide shows how to teach Dictate your names and terms. The License and trial guide covers the 14 day trial and the subscription.

Where Dictate keeps its files

Everything Dictate saves lives in one folder under your local app data. Open File Explorer and paste %LOCALAPPDATA%\x4ops\Dictate into the address bar to reach it. It holds the settings and the history and the downloaded models and the trial and license records and the log. Delete that folder and the extracted Dictate folder when you want nothing left behind after you stop using the app. Click Remove license in Settings first so the seat of this computer is free for another one.