How to use Voice Typing on Gmail (Powered by AI)

Learn how to dictate emails in Gmail with perfect formatting and punctuation. Increase productivity, speed, and reduce strain on your fingers and wrists.

Kourosh Ghaffari

• 3 min read
Voice Typing on Gmail blog post. The logo of a voice dictation extension with an arrow point at the Google Mail logo.
Write your emails with your Voice. Double your speed, save your wrists, write natural sounding emails.

How speech-to-text tools can change your everyday tasks, like writing emails.

We are all drowning in emails, myself included. And when I get time to finally respond, it feels like I get 2 more in my inbox in the process.

Writing emails is a crucial and time-consuming part of our jobs and personal lives, especially if you’re constantly typing long messages.

Luckily, there are technologies out there that can make this much easier.

Today we'll talk about speech-to-text tools, specifically for writing emails on Google Mail.

Typing with your voice doesn't just save you a bit of time. Voice dictation brings far greater benefits, including:

  • Save your wrist and fingers: Overusing your computer can lead to multiple injuries including carpal tunnel and RSI.
  • Perfect formatting, grammar, and punctuation: Many tools automatically fix your dictated text and provide you with a perfect email.
  • Natural-sounding emails: We overcomplicate things, especially when we're writing emails. Mark Twain even used some very early recording technology to write his work.

Step by Step: Voice Typing on Google Mail

For this article, we'll use a free Chrome Extension called Voicy.
Voicy uses the latest AI-powered speech to text technology, while still remaining privacy friendly.

Watch this video if you prefer visuals for the steps.

Step 1: Add the Voicy extension through the Chrome webstore

Simply visit this link and click on download.

Step 2: Write a new email on Gmail

Click on the email's body to see the Voicy element.

A screenshot of an email on Google Mail that displays the Speech To Text extension Voicy next to the body of the email

Step 3: Click on the mic to start recording

Hover over the element to reveal the two buttons.

Hovering over Voicy to display the microphone that users click on to start voice typing

Click on the microphone to start recording. The icon will turn into a red dot which means you should speak!

An image of the Voicy element that shows the user is currently dictating

Step 4: Click again to stop recording

Voicy will then return your email within 1-2 seconds. Congrats, you just wrote your first email with your voice.

A finished email produced by the voice typing tool. Fully formatted email with 5 lines and paragraphs.

Conclusion and next steps

By incorporating voice typing into your email routine, you’re adopting a more efficient way to manage communication. Writing with your voice allows for faster, more convenient emailing, all while reducing the stress of constant typing. So, if you want to boost productivity, give speech-to-text on Google Mail a try!

Try out Voicy