Dictation on MacBook just doesn't work

I'm having the same issue as well on my 16 M2 MacBook Pro and my wife's 15 inch M2 MacBook Air neither one of them works with dictation. This has been an ongoing issue for a while now and Apple appears to be ignoring this knowing that this issue is all over the Internet as obviously we are not the only ones this is happening to. Right now I have my 16 inch M2 MacBook Pro in a certified Apple repair shop and they've been trying to diagnose it for over two weeks now with no success. I'm severely disabled and rely on dictation to communicate as I'm not able to type with two hands because I'm paralyzed from a massive stroke so I'm not able to type two hands. Dictation is how I Communicate on my laptop. With iMessages Google Chrome and Facebook etc.. Restart do not work or resolve the issue either I've tried everything. Apple Needs to be aware of this issue and stop ignoring it if they know about it. Hopefully they'll admit that they know this is an issue and put out a software update to resolve this unfortunate problem. Just so you know anyone else reading this that the new MacBook pros and MacBook Airs with the Apple silicon chip when you use dictation it's processed through the device itself so you actually do not need a network for dictation work with MacBook pros or MacBook Air with silicone chips laptops from Apple that require your communication to be sent out through their servers for dictation. I'm sorry my reply is not helpful I just wanted to let you know you're not alone with this problem.

Hello Everyone I just wanted to let you all know that my Apple certified repair Shop Service center,

("Cornice") Apple certified Repair in Upland California) has contacted Apple about this dictation issue on mine and all of your behalf.

And According to the Apple IT Rep Tech Advisor they are now fully aware of the issue regarding the dictation issue and has stated An Update will soon be released, but could not give my rep a timeline timeframe as to when the dictation update resolution will be released.

...So for now just hang in there!

An official Apple update to fix dictation will be out soon!!

Oh Yes before I forget, and as for Myself,

..Yes I'm using Dictation in English.

An update will be out soon!!

I also myself spoke to this IT Tech from Apple and told him there are a lot of unhappy loyal Apple users customers out there having this issue and are very frustrated that need dictation to be fixed!!

I'm doing this for myself and for ALL of You that are having issues with dictation.

I'm trying to help YOU ALL.

Help is on the Way!!

...All the best.

~Mark Avalos~

[Edited by Moderator]

Restart your computer.

I just turned on Dictation for the first time ever, and it did not work. Very anti-climactic. Luckily, I come from your Windows background, so I used this knowledge to determine that restarting my computer was the best course of action. And would you look at that.

I even wrote most of this with Dictation! I didn't realize that it includes grammar for the most part, too. That's pretty cool.

I had the same issue. What ended up working for me was selecting a different language, for example Canadian English or German. The dictation would work in those languages. Interestingly, if I then changed it back to US English, it also worked again.

Hopefully, it works for you as well.

Thanks. I faced the same problem - the icon was showing up but doing nothing.

Restarting the Mac fixed the problem. The rest of this was written by dictating it out to the Mac.

What I found really cool was that you can type as well as dictate in case something is not correctly interpreted you can manually fix with the keyboard. You can mix the keyboard and mic, which works quite well.The only issue I found was that the cursor disappeared and I've not figured out how to tell it to delete a word.

That's hilarious! My 2019 Macbook quit doing dictation years ago and Apple promised then that they were aware and "almost" had a solution. Of course, nothing ever fixed it.

Fast forward to today as I set up my brand spanking new MacBook Pro...I'm ready to see if a lot of bugs from the old machine are now resolved. Despite the time and upgrades, still no dictation!

Glad to know though that Apple is aware and will soon have a solution.

Yeeeeees!!!! Just check marking on a different language in "DICTATION" and clicking back to United States, worked for me like magic! Just go to keyboard in your settings and in the keyboard settings, checkmark a different language, then uncheck English, then uncheck the other and recheck English. I never did hit apply. Thanks @rgb2cmyk_ this was driving me, nuts!

This has been happening to me for the longest time and it's really annoying. One of the replies below (from April) said that Apple is working on an update. Here we are in August and I am still waiting for the update.

One way to temporarily fix it is to restart your computer. By that only fixes it for a little while.

Funny that we can send spacecraft to Mars but can't fix voice dictation.

Exactly the same for me after restarted it works again super frustrating it is now months later and is even with Sequoia the issue still exists

Same problem on m3pro MacBook Pro. The fix someone posted to unselect US English then back did not work, it will not let me uncheck US English for some reason, even tried VPN to another country. Restarting does fix it.

I have noticed it seems to happen after using my AirPods. Anyone else noticed or can test this out?

Go to dictation, and then click off English onto some other language and hit apply, close it, and then go back in dictation, click on English, and then hit apply. When activating the dictation, I have to double click your function “fn” button. My little mic at the top of my keyboard does not work with dictation, but the old way, double clicking, works!

I have just read through this thread and what worked for me was to:

Open Keyboard settings

Select the dictation language and check English UK, English Canada and English Australian.

It now works like a charm.

I went back to just English UK and it didn't work any more.

So I went back to checking all 3 and it's fine. Very curious!!

Hope this helps someone. :)

does it not work in any app, including Safari, Mail, notes, messages, pages?

The language you are dictating in is English?