How to Dictate Into HEY Email on a Mac
HEY is a lovely place to write email, but it does not ship its own dictation button. The trick on a Mac is to use a system-wide voice-to-text tool that types wherever your cursor sits, including inside a HEY compose window. Here is how to set it up and dictate a clean draft in seconds.
Key takeaways
- HEY has no dictation button, so you type into it with a system-wide voice tool.
- On a Mac, put your cursor in the HEY compose box, press one shortcut, and speak.
- On-device speech to text keeps your email drafts and audio on your Mac.
- AI cleanup turns rambling speech into a punctuated, ready-to-send draft.
Why HEY needs a system-wide dictation tool
HEY, the email service from 37signals, runs in your browser and in its own Mac app. Neither surface includes a native dictation feature the way a word processor might. That is not a flaw, it is just how most email clients work. The practical answer is to dictate at the operating system level so the text flows into any text field, HEY included.
There are two broad ways to do this. You can use the free macOS Dictation that Apple builds into every Mac, which you can enable from Apple's dictation settings. Or you can use a dedicated app like BlaBlaType that runs newer local speech recognition models on-device and adds an AI cleanup pass. Both type into HEY. The difference is accuracy, privacy, and how much editing you do afterward. For a wider view of the options, see our roundup of the best dictation software for Mac in 2026.
How the flow works under the hood
Whichever tool you pick, the path from your mouth to the HEY draft follows the same shape. You speak, a model turns the audio into text, an optional cleanup step polishes it, and the result is inserted at your cursor. With an on-device app, none of those steps touch a server.
Step by step: dictate a HEY email
Here is the full setup with BlaBlaType as the example. The same cursor-and-shortcut idea applies if you use Apple's built-in dictation instead.
Install a system-wide dictation app
Download BlaBlaType for macOS and grant the accessibility and microphone permissions it asks for. These let it type into other apps and hear your voice. There is a 3-day free trial with no card required.
Open HEY and start a new email
Launch HEY in your browser or its Mac app, click Compose, then click into the message body so the text cursor is blinking inside the field where you want the words to appear.
Press your dictation shortcut and speak
Hold or tap your single global shortcut and talk normally, as if you were dictating to a colleague. Do not worry about punctuation or the odd stumble. Remember, most people speak around three to four times faster than they type.
Let AI cleanup polish the draft
When you stop, BlaBlaType transcribes on-device and its AI cleanup removes filler words, fixes punctuation and grammar, and can match the tone you set. The finished text drops into the HEY body at your cursor.
Review, add names, and send
Read the draft, add a recipient, and hit send. If HEY contacts or product names get misheard often, add them to your custom dictionary so they transcribe correctly every time.
Built-in dictation vs a dedicated app
Both approaches type into HEY, so the choice comes down to accuracy, privacy, and how much cleanup you want. The table below lays out the trade-offs honestly.
| Feature | macOS Dictation | BlaBlaType |
|---|---|---|
| Types into HEY compose box | Yes | Yes |
| Runs on-device | Mixed | Yes, always |
| Removes filler and fixes punctuation | No | Yes |
| Custom dictionary for names | Limited | Yes |
| Languages | Many | 90+, optional translate |
| Price | Free | 3-day trial, then paid |
Apple's dictation is a solid free starting point, and if verbatim text is all you need, it does the job. A dedicated app earns its place when you want the raw speech rewritten into a clean, punctuated email without a second editing pass. If you send email all day, that difference adds up. Our guide on how to dictate emails on a Mac goes deeper on the everyday workflow across clients.
Dictate every HEY email, hands on the keyboard optional
Speak into any app on your Mac, get AI-cleaned text, and keep every word on-device. No card needed for the trial.
Download for macOSTips for cleaner dictated email
A few habits make dictated HEY drafts read like you wrote them by hand. Speak in short, complete thoughts, pause between paragraphs, and say the recipient's name the way you want it spelled if it is unusual. Because BlaBlaType works system-wide, the same shortcut also dictates into Slack, Notion, your code editor, or an AI chat, which means one muscle memory covers your whole day. If you spend time in the terminal, the same idea powers voice control for developer tools, as we cover in talking to Claude Code by voice on a Mac. Curious whether it fits your setup and budget? The pricing page has the current plans and the trial details.
Frequently asked questions
Does HEY have its own dictation feature?
HEY does not ship a dedicated dictation button. Because HEY runs in the browser and in its own Mac app, you dictate into it with a system-wide voice-to-text tool that types wherever your cursor is, such as BlaBlaType or the built-in macOS Dictation.
Can I dictate into HEY without sending my voice to the cloud?
Yes. With an on-device tool like BlaBlaType, speech recognition runs entirely on your Mac, so your audio and the resulting email text never leave the device. That keeps private messages private even when the email itself is sent online.
Will dictation clean up my filler words in an email?
Basic dictation types words verbatim, including um and uh. BlaBlaType adds an on-device AI cleanup step that removes filler, fixes punctuation and grammar, and can adapt the tone, so the draft in your HEY compose window reads like written text.