Quick Start

Transcribe your first sentence in under a minute.

Finish installation and setup first.

Glaido has two ways to record. Hold a key for short bursts, or go hands-free for anything longer.

Option 1: Push-to-talk (hold a key)

Use this for quick messages and short replies.

  1. 1

    Open any text field

    Click into any app where you type: a document, email, chat, code editor, or browser text field.

  2. 2

    Hold your hotkey

    Press and hold your dictation hotkey (default: Fn on macOS, Ctrl + Win on Windows). You'll hear a start sound and see the dictation bar appear at the bottom of your screen.

    The dictation bar appears while you hold the hotkey.
  3. 3

    Speak naturally

    Talk at your normal pace. No need to slow down or over-enunciate.

  4. 4

    Release to paste

    Release the hotkey. Glaido transcribes your audio, formats the text, and pastes it into the active text field. This takes about 1 to 3 seconds.

Option 2: Hands-free (toggle)

Use this for longer dictations, when holding a key gets tiring.

  1. 1

    Press once to start

    Press the hands-free hotkey (default: Fn + Spacebar on macOS, Ctrl + Win + Shift on Windows). The dictation bar appears.

  2. 2

    Speak

    There's no key to hold, so you can talk at length. Recordings are capped at 10 minutes. Glaido warns you as you approach the limit, then stops the recording itself and keeps the transcript.

  3. 3

    Press again to stop and paste

    Press the same hotkey again. Glaido transcribes and pastes the text. Press Esc to cancel without pasting.

    Stopping with Enter

    Enter does nothing here until you turn it on. Open Settings > Hotkeys and enable Enter to stop and paste if you want Enter to end a hands-free dictation.

Next steps