How to turn on voice typing on Android (and make it good)
Android's voice typing is one tap away once you know where it lives. Here is the setup, the common fixes, and the upgrade to text that is ready to send.
- Gboard mic setup and fixes
- Assistant voice typing on Pixel
- A voice keyboard that formats
uh tell Alex I like the direction but the design still feels a bit too busy and maybe we should simplify the top section before Friday
Hey Alex, I like the direction overall. The top section still feels a little busy, so I think we should simplify it before Friday. Can you take another pass?
Tap a tone, same thought, reframed.
Turn on Gboard voice typing
With Gboard as your keyboard, tap any text field and press the microphone icon on the top right of the keyboard. If the mic is missing: open Gboard settings, Voice typing, and switch it on. On Pixel phones, Assistant voice typing adds faster, on-device recognition with automatic punctuation.
If voice typing is not working
Check three things: Gboard has microphone permission (App info, Permissions), Google's speech services are updated in the Play Store, and your input language matches what you speak. Bluetooth earbuds with a weak mic are a common source of garbage transcripts; try the phone's own mic to compare.
From words to messages: the Speechy keyboard
Speechy ships a real Android keyboard (an IME). Hold the Dictation key and your words arrive cleaned up. Hold Clarity and the ramble comes back as the finished message, right inside WhatsApp, Gmail, or wherever you are typing. Undo is one tap if you want your literal words back.
The big-name dictation apps do not ship on Android at all. Speechy is native there, free to start, with no account and no API key.
More than transcription, it frames the message.
Speak or type the messy version, and Speechy hands back the sendable one: the right tone, structure and context, in whatever app you're already in.
Framing, not transcription
Most voice apps stop at words on a page. Speechy gives you the message: the right tone, structure and context, ready to send.
Voice or messy text in
Speak it or type it. Either way you skip the part where you decide how to phrase it, and go straight to a sendable draft.
Native everywhere you think
macOS, Windows, iPhone and Android, including a real framing keyboard on mobile. Capture the thought wherever it happens.
Frames you can reuse and share
Turn the messages you dread into one-tap structures. Save your own, and (soon) share the best ones with everyone else.
Good questions, straight answers.
Where is the microphone on my Android keyboard?
On Gboard it is the mic icon in the top right of the keyboard. If it is missing, enable Voice typing in Gboard settings and check the microphone permission.
What is the best voice typing keyboard for Android?
If you want formatting, Speechy: it is a real IME whose AI turns what you say into clean, sendable text inside any app. Gboard is fine for raw words.
Related comparisons & guides
Stop rewriting your thoughts.
Say the messy version. Send the clean one. Speechy turns it into something sendable in seconds, on every device you think on.