Hands-free recording

Hands-free keeps a recording active after you release the shortcut. You still choose when to start and finish; it is not an always-listening wake-word mode.

Start a recording

• Double-tap Fn for hands-free dictation.
• Double-tap Control + Option for a hands-free agent request.
• Fn + Space starts hands-free dictation when idle. During a held recording, it can keep that recording active so you can release the keys.

These are the macOS defaults. The double-tap switches and hands-free shortcut are in Settings → General. A double tap needs to be quick: the current recognition window is about half a second.

Finish or cancel

Press your dictation shortcut, agent shortcut, or hands-free shortcut again to finish. A dictation is inserted; an agent recording becomes a request. Press Escape to discard it. Return does not finish a hands-free recording.

Watch the recording state before moving on. Releasing your hands does not stop capture while hands-free is active, so nearby speech may become part of the recording.

Recording limits

The desktop dictation ceiling is 20 minutes, then it finishes and attempts insertion. Hosted speech services have separate duration and request-size limits and may stop or reject a recording earlier; the desktop ceiling does not guarantee a 20-minute cloud session. An agent recording can run up to 5 minutes; reaching that limit discards the request instead of submitting it. Both desktop ceilings have a warning before the limit.

Cloud recognition sends audio while the recording is active. Use short recordings when trying a new microphone or shortcut.

If taps feel delayed

With double-tap enabled, Nock waits briefly to distinguish one tap from two. Disable the relevant double-tap option if you prefer single-tap behavior. For key conflicts, see keyboard shortcuts; for missing speech, see microphone input.

Practice the stop action first

Before a long recording, start hands-free, say one sentence, and finish it using the same configured trigger. Confirm the recording state goes away and that the result is inserted or submitted as expected. Repeat once with Escape so cancellation is familiar too.

Do not rely on switching apps, releasing modifier keys, or pressing Return to finish. Hands-free intentionally survives key release. If you are unsure whether it remains active, check Nock’s recording state before continuing a nearby conversation.

When modifier-and-character combinations fail in a password or secure-input context, test again in an ordinary note. macOS can hide ordinary keys from other apps in those contexts. Change your focus rather than weakening system security to make a shortcut work.