Voice typing in Cursor on Mac

Yes, you can use voice typing in Cursor on a Mac, and Cursor even has its own voice input for the agent. Where it stops, Sayburst keeps going: hold fn in any box in Cursor (the agent chat, the inline edit prompt, the commit message, a README) and let go. Clean, punctuated text lands where your cursor is, and your voice is transcribed on your Mac.

#Cursor's built-in voice input

Cursor added voice mode in Cursor 2.0: "Control Agent with your voice using built-in speech-to-text conversion", with custom submit keywords you set in settings. Cursor 3.1 reworked it in the Agents Window: press and hold Ctrl+M to speak, with a waveform, a timer and cancel and confirm buttons, and the whole clip is transcribed in one batch. The changelogs don't say whether transcription happens on your Mac or on Cursor's servers. (Checked on cursor.com, October 31, 2026.)

If you only talk to the agent, try it first. It costs nothing extra and it's right there.

#Where Sayburst helps in Cursor

Most of what you type in Cursor isn't the agent prompt. Sayburst works in any field you can type in, which in a day of Cursor looks like this:

"Not described" means Cursor's changelogs only mention voice for the agent. If your company cares where audio goes, Sayburst gives you a clear answer: it never leaves the Mac.

#How to set it up

1. Install Sayburst and allow Microphone and Accessibility. The speech model downloads once; after that it works offline.
2. Pick a dictation key that doesn't clash. fn is the default. If you've bound fn combinations in Cursor, they keep working, because fn plus another key still acts as fn. You can also use right ⌥, right ⌘ or a mouse side button.
3. Click into a Cursor field, hold fn, talk, let go. Start with the inline edit prompt. Select some code, press ⌘K, hold fn and describe the change.

Set a writing mode for Cursor in Sayburst's settings. Clean suits prompts and commit messages; Notes turns spoken lists into bullets for docs.

#Three things you'll say in Cursor

An inline edit. Select a function, press ⌘K, then say:

"Um, make this retry three times with exponential backoff, start at two hundred milliseconds, and, uh, log a warning on each retry but only throw after the last one."

What lands in the prompt:

Make this retry three times with exponential backoff, start at 200 milliseconds, and log a warning on each retry but only throw after the last one.

A commit message. Open Source Control, click the message box, and say "Fix double charge on retried webhooks, new paragraph, we were processing the event before checking the idempotency key, now we check first and skip duplicates." You get a subject line, a blank line, and a body that explains why.

A README section in Notes mode. "Local setup. Bullet point copy env example to env. Bullet point run the seed script. Bullet point, uh, start the dev server on port three thousand" becomes a heading line and three bullets. Fix the file names by hand if needed; Sayburst writes words, not paths.

#What stays on your Mac

• Your voice. Sayburst transcribes locally and never uploads audio.
• Cleanup. Punctuation, filler removal and the optional Sayburst Writer all run on your Mac. A cloud writer is only used if you connect one with your own API key, and then only text is sent.
• Your code is never read. Sayburst doesn't open your files. Context such as selected text or clipboard text is off by default and only goes to the writer if you switch it on.

What you send to Cursor's agent is then handled by Cursor and its model providers, like any typed prompt.

#Tips for Cursor

• Load your stack into Vocabulary. Library names, internal services and teammates' names. Sayburst corrects near-misses toward them without changing ordinary words. Our guide to custom vocabulary walks through it.
• Use replacements for spoken shorthand. Map "use effect" to useEffect or "our API base" to the real URL.
• Ramble on purpose. The agent does better with the context you'd skip when typing. See why talking to AI beats typing.
• Tidy a comment you already wrote. Select a rambling code comment, hold the rewrite shortcut and say "make this two short sentences, keep the ticket number". The selection is replaced in place.
• Ask without leaving the file. Hold the ask shortcut and say "what's the difference between useMemo and useCallback again". The answer shows in a panel with Copy and Insert, and the agent's context stays clean.
• Same key in the terminal. If you run Claude Code in Cursor's terminal, dictation works there too.
• Write the Slack update after. The same shortcut works in Slack. For the bigger developer workflow, see dictation for developers.

#Limits

Sayburst doesn't dictate code symbol by symbol and doesn't control the editor; it writes text and leaves edits to Cursor's agent and your keyboard. Text arrives when you let go, not streamed live. It needs an Apple silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later, so if you also run Cursor on Windows or Linux, use Cursor's own voice input there.

Questions people ask

Does Cursor have voice input?

Yes. Cursor's changelog describes built-in speech to text for the agent, and in the Agents Window you can press and hold Ctrl+M to speak. Cursor doesn't say whether that audio is transcribed on your machine or on a server.

Can I dictate commit messages and code comments in Cursor?

With Sayburst, yes. It types into whichever field has focus, so the commit message box, the inline edit prompt, a Markdown file and the integrated terminal all work, not just the agent input.

Does Sayburst send my code to anyone?

No. Sayburst only hears your voice, transcribes it on your Mac and types the text. It doesn't read your files, and it never uploads audio.

Can I write code syntax by voice in Cursor?

Dictation is best for describing what you want; let Cursor's agent write the syntax. For speaking code symbol by symbol, a voice coding tool like Talon is built for that.