Recording works. You see the waveform, and the finished text is in Sprecho's history — the recogniser did its job. But your document, chat window or browser field stayed empty. The problem is the last step: getting the text into the app in front of you.
Try this first
- macOS only: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and confirm Sprecho is switched on. Then quit Sprecho fully and reopen it — macOS only hands the permission to a freshly launched process.
- Click into the field where you want the text before you start speaking, and do not click anywhere else while you speak.
- Update to the current version under Settings → System → Updates. Several apps that used to be missed are recognised correctly in newer builds.
Sprecho says "Saved to Sprecho clipboard"
This is not a failure message — it is Sprecho refusing to throw your words away. Before typing, it checks that there really is an editable text field under your cursor, and when it cannot confirm one it keeps the text and tells you the shortcut to paste it: Ctrl+Cmd+V on macOS, Ctrl+Alt+V on Windows. The exact shortcut is in the notice itself and under Settings → General → Clipboard.
Seeing this every time usually means one of the causes below.
The Accessibility permission is missing or stale on macOS
This permission is what lets Sprecho type into other applications. Without it, recording and transcription still work perfectly — which is exactly why this symptom is confusing.
macOS never grants it from a dialog alone. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, add Sprecho with the + button, switch it on, and restart the app.
If it used to work and stopped, Dictation stopped working after a macOS update covers the stale-entry case, which needs a remove-and-re-add rather than a toggle. On Windows there is no equivalent permission — nothing to grant, and nothing to check here.
The target app lost focus while you were speaking
Sprecho types into whatever is focused at the moment the dictation finishes, not at the moment it started. If a notification stole focus, if you alt-tabbed, or if you clicked Sprecho's own window to watch the waveform, the text goes somewhere else — or nowhere, since Sprecho's own window is not a valid target.
Click into your text field first, then hold the dictation key, then leave the mouse alone.
Password fields and other secure inputs
While a password field has focus, the operating system blocks every other application from sending keystrokes into it. This is deliberate, it applies to all dictation and text-expansion tools, and there is no setting that turns it off.
One thing worth knowing: on macOS this block can outlive the password field. If an app puts the system into secure-input mode and does not release it cleanly, typing stays blocked everywhere until that app is closed. Password managers and terminal emulators with a password prompt open are the usual culprits — quit the app that last showed a password prompt and try again.
Apps that refuse simulated input
A few applications reject text that did not come from a real keyboard:
- Windows apps running as administrator. Windows does not let a normal program send input into a window with higher privileges. Run the app without administrator rights, or start Sprecho with the same rights.
- Games and remote-control tools that capture input at driver level.
- Virtual machine windows that grab the keyboard exclusively.
In all of these, the clipboard route still works: dictate, then paste with the shortcut from Settings → General → Clipboard.
The app is recognised but its text field is not
Apps built on Chromium and Electron — chat clients, AI assistants, note apps, code editors — often describe their editable areas so vaguely that no automation interface can tell an editor from a static page. Sprecho keeps a list of these apps and pastes into them directly instead of asking. That list has grown substantially in recent releases, so if a specific app dropped your dictation into the Sprecho clipboard every time, updating is the fix.
If it still happens after updating, tell support which app it is — collect logs for support explains what to send, and the app can be added.
Symptom → cause
| What you see | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| "Saved to Sprecho clipboard" every time | Accessibility is off on macOS, or the app's text field is not recognised |
| Text lands in a different app | Focus changed between starting and finishing the dictation |
| It works everywhere except one app | That app blocks simulated input, or it needs to be added to the paste-directly list |
| Nothing works right after granting Accessibility | Sprecho was not restarted afterwards |
| Nothing works in any app, suddenly | An app left macOS in secure-input mode — quit whatever last showed a password prompt |
| Nothing works in an admin window on Windows | Privilege mismatch — match the rights of the two programs |
Still stuck?
Contact support with the name of the app you were dictating into, your operating system version and your Sprecho version from Settings → System → Updates. Naming the app matters: most remaining cases of this are one specific application, and that is something we can fix in a release.