How to Set Up Wispr Flow in 5 Steps (2026)

To set up Wispr Flow, download it from wisprflow.ai, choose a hotkey, set a tone for each app, add the words you use often, then send your first email by voice. Wispr Flow turns what you say into text in any app on your Mac or Windows computer, so you can speak an email, a Slack message or a note instead of typing it.

This guide takes you from download to a finished email in five steps, including the tone and custom-word settings.

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The guide puts it at 2 to 3 hours a day spent typing emails, messages and documents. Most of that time is spent on the mechanics of typing, not on deciding what to say.

Wispr Flow replaces typing with speaking: you say the words, and it types them in whichever app you have open.

Go to wisprflow.ai and click "Download for Mac" or "Download for Windows". Install the app and open it. The download is free.

Open Settings, then Hotkey, and choose any key combination you like, such as Ctrl + Win. This is the key you press whenever you want to start speaking, so pick one you can reach without looking.

Go to App Settings and choose a tone for each app you write in. The guide's example:

Wispr Flow then applies the right tone automatically, based on the app you are dictating into. You speak the same way everywhere, and your Gmail drafts come out formal while your Slack messages stay casual.

Go to Custom Words and add the terms you use often:

You add each word once, and Wispr Flow keeps it, so it recognises those names and terms when you say them.

Open Gmail, start a new email and click into the body. Press your hotkey and speak for 30 seconds. Read what appears, make any small fixes, and send it.

That is the full setup. From here, the same hotkey works in every app where you write.

Before: you sit down at the keyboard for every reply, and the time goes on typing out words you had already worked out. After: you press one key, say the message, and Wispr Flow writes it in the right tone for the app, using the names and terms you added.

Once it is set up, put it to work on your AI tools as well. How to speak AI prompts with Wispr Flow shows how to brief ChatGPT or Claude out loud, and how Steven Bartlett made voice his main input covers what changed when he did. If you are still choosing an AI assistant, start with how to set up ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot. More step-by-step systems like this one are in the AI Central Library.

Download Wispr Flow from wisprflow.ai, install and open it, set a hotkey under Settings, choose a tone for each app under App Settings, and add the names and terms you use often under Custom Words. Then press your hotkey in any text box and speak.

Yes. You can download Wispr Flow for free from wisprflow.ai.

Yes. The download page offers versions for both Mac and Windows, and once installed it works across the apps you write in.

Open Settings, then Hotkey, and choose any key combination you like, for example Ctrl + Win.

Add them under Custom Words. Client names, product codes and technical terms you add there are recognised when you dictate them.