Dictate into Slack, Docs, and the Apps You Already Use
Most of your typing is not in a meeting note
You already spend the day in Slack threads, email drafts, Google Docs comments, tickets, and the odd Notion page. A meeting recorder does not help when the cursor is in a chat box. Dedicated dictation apps exist for that gap. They ask you to install a second product, learn a second overlay, and keep history somewhere that has nothing to do with your meetings.
Grafite already sits on your computer for calls, transcripts, and the knowledge graph. The desktop app now covers the rest of the typing day too: dictation into other apps, plus quick notes and quick voice notes that land in Grafite without hunting for a window.
Mac download is available now. Windows follows the same design as we roll that build out. The point is one installable desktop app, not a pile of single-purpose tools.
Three captures, three destinations
It helps to split the jobs instead of pretending one button should do everything.
Dictation types into the frontmost app. Click Slack, press the shortcut, speak, press it again. The text shows up where you were already working. Grafite keeps a private history of those inserts. They do not clutter your note list.
Quick note (⌘⇧N / Ctrl+Shift+N) opens a compact Grafite window. Type a follow-up, close it, find it later in Notes, search, or Ask Grafi.
Quick voice note (⌘⇧V / Ctrl+Shift+V) is the spoken version of that: a small recorder, a live transcript, a note that can summarize and spawn tasks like any other voice memo.
Meeting recording is still the fourth job. That is for Zoom, Meet, Teams, Slack huddles, and in-person capture. Dictation is paused while a meeting is recording so the microphone stays with the call.
If you have used products in the OpenWhispr or Wispr Flow category, the dictation motion will feel familiar: global shortcut, speak, text at the cursor. The difference is you are not buying a separate dictation lifestyle. It ships next to the recorder you already wanted for meetings.
Where people actually dictate
Anywhere a cursor can land:
- Slack or Microsoft Teams when a reply would take longer to hunt-and-peck than to say
- Mail, Gmail, or Outlook for a first draft you will still edit
- Google Docs, Word, Notion, Apple Notes, and other writing surfaces
- Linear, Jira, GitHub comments, spreadsheets, IDEs
- Browser fields, forms, and comment boxes
You do not need a Grafite-shaped box in the middle of those apps. Grafite stays out of the way until you call it.
Default shortcut: ⌘⇧D on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+D on Windows. Remap it in Settings → Hotkeys if another tool already owns that combo.
On your computer, or in Grafite cloud
Standalone dictation apps sell privacy by running speech locally. That matters, and Grafite already had the same idea for meetings: Grafite Cloud versus On device Light through Best.
Dictation has its own picker in Settings → Intelligence:
- Apple Speech on a Mac: built-in engine, no extra download
- On device — Best: one-time model download in the desktop app, then speech stays on that computer
- Grafite Cloud Pro: streaming path on Professional plans, processed to make text, not sold, not used to train models
Auto uses On device — Best once the files are there. Until then, a Mac falls back to Apple Speech.
This is not the finished on-device story. Meeting transcription already offers local options. Dictation can too. More of Grafite is moving in that direction so you can keep compute on the machine when the hardware can handle it. We will not pretend the whole product is offline today.
Quick notes when the words should stay yours
Dictation into Slack is public to the channel the moment you send it. Plenty of thoughts should never go there.
That is the quick note window. You are still in a browser tab, a Figma file, or a spreadsheet. You do not want to context-switch into the full Grafite editor. Press the shortcut, dump the thought, close the window. The first line becomes the title. Open it later for slash commands, folders, people, and sharing.
Quick voice notes cover the walking-to-the-car case that voice notes already handle in the main app, except the compact window starts from any app, not only from the + menu.
How this sits next to meeting Grafite
Grafite is still browser-first. Sign in, record, ask Grafi, keep the graph. The desktop app is optional: system audio when headphones hide the other side of a call, native notifications, and now these capture shortcuts.
You do not need dictation to get value from meetings. You do not need a meeting to use dictation. They share an account, a settings surface, and (when you choose On device — Best) a local speech install.
For the how-to, see dictation support, desktop capture, and the dictation feature page. In-app help covers the same ground after you sign in.
What we are not claiming
We are not a Dragon replacement with a medical vocabulary pack. We are not promising that every app on earth will accept inserted text. A few locked-down fields still need a paste. Accessibility permission on a Mac is required for insert; that is an OS rule, not a Grafite quirk.
We also are not asking you to stop using the notes apps you like. Dictation is for those apps. Grafite notes are for the graph you can search later.
If that split matches how you already work, install the desktop app from Settings → Desktop App and try the shortcut in Slack first. That is usually the test that tells you in ten seconds whether this belongs in your day.
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