Sonari

Using Sonari ​

The shortcut ​

The default shortcut is ⌘⇧Space. You can change it to anything in Settings.

There are two ways to use it:

  • Toggle mode (the default): press once to start recording, press again to stop and transcribe.
  • Hold mode: hold the shortcut while you speak, and release to transcribe.

Pick whichever feels natural in Settings.

Trigger with the Globe (fn) key ​

You can set your trigger to the 🌐 (fn) key, the Globe key at the bottom-left of most Mac keyboards. In Settings → General, click the Trigger field and tap 🌐 instead of pressing a key combo — the field then shows 🌐. It's a single trigger, so choosing fn replaces the key combo, and recording a combo clears fn. It works in whichever mode you picked, toggle or hold.

The fn key isn't a standard modifier, so two things are worth setting up first:

  • It needs Accessibility permission to fire while you're in another app, the same permission Sonari uses to paste. If you granted that for auto-paste, fn already works.
  • macOS binds its own action to fn. Open System Settings → Keyboard and set "Press 🌐 to" to "Do Nothing", so the two don't fire at once.

See Troubleshooting if fn does nothing when you press it.

What you'll see ​

While you're recording, the notch expands to show a live waveform. When you stop, it switches to "Transcribing…", then names the transform that ran (Message…), so you can see which one fired. A moment later your text is pasted into the app you were already in.

The notch expanded into a HUD with a live waveform while recording

No notch on your Mac? The same HUD appears as a floating bar near the top of the screen instead.

You can also click the record button in the menu-bar panel instead of using the shortcut.

Where the text goes ​

By default, Sonari pastes the finished text into the focused app, the one your cursor was in. It works the same everywhere: Mail, Slack, a code editor, a terminal, a text field in the browser.

If you haven't granted Accessibility permission, Sonari can't paste for you, so it copies the text to your clipboard instead. Just press ⌘V. To switch to automatic pasting, grant Accessibility in Settings → Permissions. See Troubleshooting if paste isn't behaving.

Cleaning up and reshaping text ​

Every transcript runs through your custom dictionary and whichever AI transform is active (clean-up, email, list, and so on) before it lands. Both are optional and both run on your Mac.

You can also match a transform to the app you're dictating into, so the right one runs without you switching by hand.