Echo
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In this guide
The quick answer
Click in your email’s message body, hold Echo’s dictation key, speak, and release. Echo pastes the text into the focused field. Dictate one paragraph at a time, check names and dates, and send the message yourself.
Use a three-part spoken draft
Before you start, decide what the reader needs to know. For a short work email, a useful pattern is context, request, next step. You do not have to dictate the whole message in one take.
Example: following up on a proposal
Thanks for sending the proposal. Could you add a separate estimate for the onboarding work? If you can send the revision by Thursday, we can review it before our Friday call.
Three sentences cover the reason for writing, the requested action, and the timing.
Keep subject lines separate from the body. Type or dictate a short subject, then click in the message field before starting the longer draft. Enter recipients deliberately so a misheard name does not choose the wrong person.
Dictate into your email app
- Prepare Echo. Install it on macOS 26 with Apple silicon, finish the speech model download, and allow Microphone and Accessibility access.
- Open a draft. Use your usual email app or webmail editor. Click in the message body and make sure you can type there.
- Speak a paragraph. Hold fn, or your chosen Echo key, and say the message at a normal pace.
- Release and review. Echo inserts the completed text where the cursor is. Read that paragraph before adding the next one.
- Finish the email. Add spacing, links, attachments, and the sign-off. Check the recipient and subject, then send it yourself.
Echo uses the focused field rather than a special email integration. If a web editor does not accept the paste, try a simple TextEdit document to separate an editor issue from a dictation issue. You can retrieve text from Echo’s History when history is enabled.
Handle corrections and recurring names
In AI mode, Echo asks the cleanup model to apply self-corrections while preserving your wording. For example, “Let’s meet Tuesday, no wait, Wednesday afternoon” is intended to become “Let’s meet Wednesday afternoon.” The exact result depends on the model and recognition, so check the day before sending.
Off mode only does basic cleanup; do not expect it to resolve that correction. You can simply finish the dictation and edit the day yourself. Choose the mode that matches how much tidying you want in the cleanup guide.
For names, product terms, or abbreviations you dictate repeatedly, add the spelling in Settings → Dictionary. A “Misheard as” entry can replace a recurring transcription with your intended term. Check a new entry in a short test before relying on it across messages.
Make the last pass a reading pass
Check the facts first: recipient, names, dates, amounts, and whether a sentence says “can” or “can’t.” Then check tone. Spoken language can be clear and friendly without adding a formal greeting to every paragraph.
For a longer message, use separate dictations for separate ideas. That makes it easier to move a paragraph or remove a tangent. Echo’s cleanup is meant to preserve your message, not invent a rationale or fill in facts you did not say.
If the email contains information you want to process locally, choose Off, Apple, or a model running on your Mac. Your email provider still receives the finished message through the email app. The offline and privacy guide explains that distinction.