Echo
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In this guide
The quick answer
In a supported browser, Google Docs has Tools → Voice typing. With Echo, click in your document and use your usual hold-to-talk key instead. Echo handles speech locally, but the text you put in Google Docs is still part of a Google document.
Option 1: use Google Docs voice typing
Google Docs offers voice typing in current versions of Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Open an editable document, choose Tools → Voice typing, and click its microphone to start. Click again when finished. Your browser handles the speech service and sends the resulting text to Docs. An organisation’s administrator can disable the feature. See Google’s voice typing instructions for supported controls and languages.
This is a convenient starting point if most of your writing happens in Docs. Keep the document’s microphone stopped when trying another dictation tool, so two tools do not listen to the same sentence.
Option 2: use Echo’s Mac shortcut
Echo handles dictation before inserting the text into the document. It is useful if you want the same shortcut in your email, notes, and documents, or want a cleanup pass between speaking and pasting.
- Install Echo on a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26. Complete the microphone, Accessibility, and speech-model setup.
- Open your Google document and make sure you have editing access.
- Click in the document body where you want the paragraph. Check that you see the text cursor rather than a selected toolbar control.
- Hold fn, speak a few sentences, and release. Echo’s indicator shows recognition and any cleanup before pasting.
- Read the inserted paragraph. Add headings, bullets, links, and other document formatting using Docs’ editing controls.
Echo uses normal text insertion rather than a dedicated Google Docs extension. If a paste fails in your browser or editor configuration, test Echo in TextEdit and use the saved text in History, when enabled, to recover your draft.
Dictate the content, then organise it
For a report or project brief, think in small blocks. Say the point, give the supporting detail, and stop. Read that block before dictating the next. This makes it easier to see when you have repeated yourself or left a sentence unfinished.
Example: a project update
The first round of interviews is complete. Three people found the setup confusing, so the next draft will explain that step before asking them to continue. We will test the new version on Friday.
Add a heading such as “Research update” with the document’s formatting controls after the text is in place.
Echo’s cleanup is instructed to preserve the language and meaning of your words. It does not act as a Docs editing command system. If you need to move a paragraph, insert a table, or change heading levels, use the editor rather than dictating an instruction you do not want written into the document.
If the words do not appear
Check which tool is active. For Docs’ own voice typing, inspect browser microphone access and follow Google’s help. For Echo, look at its listening indicator and Settings → Permissions. Echo needs its own microphone access; granting the website access is a different permission.
If Echo shows the correct transcript but inserts nothing, click in the document again and try a short sentence. A successful TextEdit test points toward focus, edit access, or the web editor rather than speech recognition. The troubleshooting guide follows that diagnosis step by step.
Finally, local recognition does not make a cloud document private to your device. Echo can process speech locally, but Google Docs handles the document you put the text into. For a local-only draft, use a local file and follow the offline workflow.