Voice Typing for Slack
Hold a hotkey, say the message, let go. Punctuated text lands in the Slack composer you already have open — DMs, threads and channels alike. There is nothing to install into Slack itself.
Nothing for an admin to approve
No Slack app, no bot user, no OAuth scopes and no workspace install. Your workspace does not change, and nobody else can tell you are using it.
Words appear while you talk
Streaming transcription returns text sub-second rather than after you stop, so a long thread reply does not become a long silence followed by a wall of text.
Punctuation you did not dictate
Full stops, commas and sentence casing are inferred from the speech itself. You are not saying “comma” out loud in an open-plan office.
How it works with Slack
Three steps, none of them inside Slack.
Install the desktop client
A small native binary for Windows, macOS or Linux. It links to your account once with a device code and then sits in the tray. Slack never sees it and never needs to.
Put the cursor in the Slack composer
Any text field will do — a channel, a thread reply, a DM, the search box, an edit of a message you already sent. The client types into whatever is focused.
Hold your hotkey and speak
Audio streams to the transcription service and punctuated text arrives in the composer as you go. Release the key, read it, press enter. Nothing is posted for you.
Why Slack is the place this pays off
Slack messages are the archetype of the writing dictation is good at: short, prose, conversational, and produced in volume all day. They are also the writing people most often put off, which is how a thread ends up with a two-word reply where a paragraph was needed. Speaking a paragraph costs about as much effort as typing two words.
The other half is asynchronous work. A colleague in another timezone gets a proper handover instead of “will explain tomorrow”, because the expensive part of writing the handover was the typing. This is the same reason people record voice notes — except the recipient gets text they can skim, search and quote, rather than a ninety-second audio file they have to find headphones for.
And because the text goes into the composer rather than being sent, you still read it before anyone else does. Dictation that posts on your behalf is a different and much riskier product.
What it does not do
- It does not read Slack. There is no summarising of channels, no catching up on threads and no search over your history — the client types, it does not have access to your workspace at all.
- It cannot post, react or run slash commands for you. The text goes in the composer and you press enter.
- Formatting is plain text. Code blocks, bold and bullet syntax are still typed or pasted by hand; dictating Slack markdown out loud is slower than writing it.
- On mobile there is no client. The desktop clients are Windows, macOS and Linux only — for phone use there is a WhatsApp bot you send voice notes to, which is a different workflow.
Common questions
Do I need a Slack admin to approve anything?+
No. VibeVoice is not a Slack app and does not connect to Slack. The desktop client inserts text into whichever field has focus on your own machine, so from Slack’s point of view you typed it. Nothing is installed into the workspace and no permissions are requested.
Does it work in threads and DMs as well as channels?+
Yes, and in the search box, message edits and the status field — anywhere a cursor can go. The client does not know which part of Slack you are in, which is exactly why it works everywhere in it.
Will it send the message automatically?+
No. The text is placed in the composer and stops there. You read it and press enter yourself. That is deliberate: an automatic send turns every recognition error into a message your colleagues have already seen.
Does it work in the Slack desktop app or only the browser?+
Both. The desktop app and Slack in a browser tab are both just focused text fields as far as the client is concerned.
What does it cost?+
The free tier is 30 minutes of transcription a month with no card required, which is enough to find out whether dictating Slack messages suits you. Pro is €3 a month and covers the desktop clients, uploaded recordings and the WhatsApp bot on one account.
The same client works in VS Code, Notion and Obsidian. If you are comparing dictation tools first, start with the comparisons.
Last reviewed . Competitor pricing and platform support change; check theirs before buying.