Mac dictation punctuation commands and when to skip

In Mac dictation you say the punctuation mark: “comma”, “period”, “question mark”, “new line”, “new paragraph”. macOS also adds commas, periods and question marks on its own in supported languages, and it stops listening after 30 seconds of silence. Apple’s full list is on its dictation commands page; the ones you will use most are in the table below, checked 2026-09-27.

Apple’s punctuation commands

From Apple’s “Commands for dictating text on Mac”, checked 2026-09-27. Say the phrase on the left while dictating.

Say	You get
comma	,
period (or full stop)	.
question mark	?
exclamation point	the exclamation mark
colon / semicolon	: / ;
open parenthesis / close parenthesis	( / )
quote … end quote	text in quotation marks
new line	a line break
new paragraph	a blank line and a new paragraph
caps on … caps off	Title Case for the words between
all caps on … all caps off	CAPITALS for the words between
no space on … no space off	words joined with no spaces
numeral (before a number)	the digit instead of the word
tab key	a tab

Apple’s page also covers currency and math symbols, emoji by name, and roman numerals.

Auto-punctuation: what it does and misses

With auto-punctuation on (System Settings, Keyboard, Dictation), macOS inserts commas, periods and question marks as you speak. You can mix it with spoken commands.

What it does not do:

• Paragraphs. It won’t break a long dictation into paragraphs. You still say “new paragraph”.
• Corrections. “Meet on Thursday, no, Friday” comes out word for word.
• Fillers. There is no setting to drop “um” or “you know”.
• Tone. The same text goes into Mail and Slack.

Speaking punctuation also changes how you talk. People who dictate with commands slow down and think in marks instead of sentences, which is the opposite of why they wanted to dictate.

Talking normally with an AI cleanup

The other approach is to say nothing about punctuation and fix the text after transcription.

AI cleanup is a short pass through a language model after speech-to-text that adds punctuation and capitals, splits paragraphs, removes fillers and applies spoken corrections, without rewriting your words.

In Nota this is Smart Dictation. An example from the test set we used to pick its default model (2026-09-26):

• Said: “maybe the api budget is €125.50 but im not sure”
• Pasted: “Maybe the API budget is €125.50, but I’m not sure.”

Capitals, the comma, the apostrophe and the period are added, and the number is left alone. A spoken correction works the same way: “Thursday, no, Friday” becomes “Friday”.

How it behaves:

• Short, clean sentences skip the model entirely: under 12 words, one line, a capital at the start and a mark at the end. They are pasted as spoken, at no cost.
• It picks a style by app: Email in Mail, Work chat in Slack, Personal chat in Messages. In Personal chat a short message loses its final period, the way people type.
• If the model does not answer in time, your original text is pasted with a notice. You never lose the dictation.
• It needs a provider key (OpenAI by default). On the default model the cleanup costs about a cent an hour of speech.

Spoken commands still work under Smart Dictation: “new line” or “comma” sends the text through the model, which applies them as layout instead of typing the words.

Which to use when

• Apple Dictation with commands: short notes, one language, you don’t mind saying “comma”. Free and built in.
• Apple Dictation with auto-punctuation only: quick messages where a missing paragraph break does not matter.
• A cleanup pass: longer text, emails, anything with names or corrections, or when you want to talk the way you talk.

The setup is on the Smart Dictation docs page.