By the end of this guide you will be able to dictate on your iPhone with no internet connection, in any app that shows a keyboard. You will first check whether Apple's built-in keyboard dictation already works offline for your language, and then set up the ThinkScribe Voice keyboard, which transcribes on your device in every language it supports and can tidy up what you said.
Why "offline" is the question to ask
Dictation on a phone is easy to take for granted until you are on a plane, in a basement, on a foreign SIM with no data, or writing something you would rather keep to yourself. In each of those cases the question is the same: is the speech turned into text on the phone, or somewhere else?
Apple's keyboard dictation answers that question differently depending on your language and your iPhone model. A keyboard backed by a speech model on your device answers it the same way every time.
What Apple's built-in dictation does offline
Every iPhone has dictation built into the system keyboard, turned on under Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Dictation. You tap the microphone key, speak, and tap it again to stop. Apple documents the basics on its Dictate text on iPhone page.
Apple processes dictation on the device for a set of languages on supported iPhone models, and uses its servers for the rest. The note under the Enable Dictation switch tells you which applies to you, and the list changes between iOS versions. The reliable test takes ten seconds: turn on Airplane Mode, open Notes, tap the microphone key and say a sentence. If text appears, your language works offline. If the key is greyed out or nothing happens, it does not.
Even where it works offline, built-in dictation has limits worth knowing:
- No cleanup step. Hesitations, repeated words and "no, scratch that" all land in the text. You edit by hand.
- Short sessions. Dictation ends after a stretch of silence, so if you pause to think you tap the key again.
- Dictation follows the keyboard language. If you switch languages, you switch keyboards first.
For a two-line reply this is fine. For a long message or a note in a language that is not processed on your device, a dedicated voice keyboard does better.
How to set up offline dictation with the ThinkScribe Voice keyboard
ThinkScribe for iPhone includes a keyboard called ThinkScribe Voice. It runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 26 or later.
- Install ThinkScribe from the App Store and open it. There is no account to create.
- Open ThinkScribe's voice typing setup in the app, or go straight to the iOS Settings app: General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard.
- Tap Open Keyboard Settings, then Keyboards, and turn on ThinkScribe Voice.
- Tap ThinkScribe Voice and turn on Allow Full Access.
- In any app, tap a text field, touch and hold the globe key and choose ThinkScribe Voice.
- Tap the mic and speak hands-free, then tap again to stop. Or hold the mic for push-to-talk, and swipe up to lock it on. The text lands where you were typing.
iOS shows a standard warning whenever a third-party keyboard asks for Full Access. Here it is needed so the keyboard can connect to the ThinkScribe app on the same phone to record and transcribe. What you dictate is transcribed on your device and never sent to us.
Why the audio goes through the app, not the keyboard
iOS does not let keyboards use the microphone. So the keyboard hands over to the ThinkScribe app, the app listens and transcribes on the phone, and the text lands back in the field you were typing in.
If the app is not running, the keyboard shows Open ThinkScribe. Tap it, the app opens and shows "Keyboard Connected", then go back to where you were typing. From then on the mic stays ready for the Mic Idle Timeout you choose, so you do not have to repeat the hop for every message.
What the keyboard does beyond dictation
- 11 languages for voice typing. English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Greek and Korean. Recordings in the ThinkScribe app cover 28 languages. ThinkScribe's default language is set under Settings > Language.
- Clean Text. Removes hesitations and filler words from what you dictated.
- AI Rewrite chips. Fix Grammar, Casual, Professional and Concise reshape what you said. These need Apple Intelligence, provided by Apple, on a device that supports it.
- A normal typing keyboard too. ThinkScribe Voice has typing layouts for the same 11 languages, so you do not have to switch back to type a correction.
The free download includes free uses of voice typing so you can try it.
Tips for better results
- Hold the phone the way you would on a call. Six to twelve inches from your mouth is fine; you do not need to speak into the microphone.
- Speak in full sentences. Speech models punctuate better when they can hear the shape of a sentence than when you deliver one word at a time.
- Dictate first, tidy second. Get the thought out, then fix the two words that came out wrong, or tap a rewrite chip.
- Set your language. Setting the language you speak as the default in Settings > Language avoids wrong guesses.
If you want the same workflow on your Mac, the companion guide to voice typing on Mac walks through the Option-Space shortcut. If you are weighing on-device against cloud dictation more generally, on-device vs cloud transcription covers the trade-offs, and voice field notes that work offline shows longer offline recording in practice. For every way to turn speech into text, see the complete voice to text guide and the voice typing use case.
Frequently asked questions
Does iPhone dictation work offline?
For some languages, yes. Apple processes dictation on the device for a set of languages on supported iPhones and uses its servers for the rest. Check the note under Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Dictation, or turn on Airplane Mode and try it. The ThinkScribe Voice keyboard transcribes on your device and works offline in all 11 of its languages.
Why does my voice keyboard open another app when I dictate?
iOS keyboards cannot use the microphone, so ThinkScribe Voice hands over to the ThinkScribe app, which records and transcribes on the phone and sends the text back to the field you were typing in. If the app was closed, you see Open ThinkScribe once; after that the mic stays ready for the idle timeout you set.
Is it safe to allow full access for a keyboard?
Full Access is the iOS permission that lets a third-party keyboard communicate with its own app, which is what a voice keyboard needs. The question to ask is where the keyboard sends your data. ThinkScribe has no account, and what you dictate is transcribed on your device and never sent to us. The app sends us only crash reports and usage counts, never your audio, transcripts or any other content, and you can turn that off in Settings.
Can I dictate in a language other than English offline on iPhone?
With Apple's dictation it depends on whether that language is processed on your model. With ThinkScribe Voice the answer is yes for all 11 of its languages, including German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Korean, because recognition runs on the phone. For other languages, such as Japanese, Polish or Ukrainian, record in the ThinkScribe app, which transcribes 28 languages on the device.
