How to dictate on iPhone in any app

You dictate on iPhone by switching your keyboard to Parlo, tapping the mic, and speaking into the app that opens. Parlo transcribes and cleans up the text on your device, then you swipe back to the app you were using and the keyboard inserts it. Setup takes a few steps in Settings, once.

By Eric Friedman. Last updated 2026-09-08.

You dictate on iPhone with Parlo by switching your keyboard, tapping the mic, and letting the app do the recording. This guide covers the one-time setup, what happens each time you dictate, and what the Full Access permission the keyboard asks for actually grants.

How do you set up the Parlo keyboard?

Setup happens once, in the iOS Settings app.

1. Open Settings, then General, then Keyboard, then Keyboards.
2. Tap Add New Keyboard and choose Parlo.
3. Tap Parlo again in the keyboard list and turn on Allow Full Access.

Full Access is required. Without it, the keyboard cannot receive the text that the Parlo app records and transcribes, so dictation cannot work. Typing with the keyboard's regular keys does not need Full Access.

How do you switch to the Parlo keyboard?

Once it is installed, you switch to it in any app with a text field.

1. Tap into a text field, so the keyboard is on screen.
2. Touch and hold the globe key in the bottom row of the keyboard.
3. Choose Parlo from the list that appears.

The globe key's exact position can shift slightly between apps, but the touch-and-hold gesture stays the same across iOS.

How does dictation work once you are on the Parlo keyboard?

1. Tap the mic key. Parlo's app opens and starts recording.
2. Speak your dictation. Parlo transcribes it on your device as you talk.
3. When you are done, swipe back to the app you were using.
4. The keyboard inserts the cleaned text where your cursor was.

The swipe back is a manual step, not a bug. iOS requires a person to bring the previous app back to the front before a keyboard extension can insert text into it. Because of that rule, Parlo never inserts text automatically in the background, and it never inserts the same result twice. If a result is not picked up, it expires rather than landing in a later app or the wrong field.

Why can't the keyboard just record the audio itself?

iOS does not allow a keyboard extension to access the microphone, for any app, not just Parlo. Recording and transcription have to happen in a full app, which is why tapping the mic key opens Parlo's app instead of recording directly inside the keyboard. The keyboard and the app pass your dictated text back and forth through a shared container, which Full Access grants access to, and nothing else. The keyboard never links to iCloud sync and never talks to Apple's or Parlo's servers on its own.

What does Full Access actually let Parlo do?

Full Access is an iOS permission for any custom keyboard, not something specific to Parlo. Apple's own documentation for configuring open access for a custom keyboard describes what the permission grants a keyboard extension in general (checked 2026-09-06). Parlo's use of it is narrow: passing your dictated text from the app to the keyboard through the shared App Group container. The keyboard reads that container and nothing else. It does not touch your sync data.

What do you get once the text is cleaned up?

Parlo does more than type back what you said. An on-device language model removes filler sounds, false starts, and repeated words. As you speak, deterministic commands such as "new line," "new paragraph," and "parentheses ... end parentheses" apply even with cleanup off; "quote" and "end quote" need the on-device model turned on. A length guard checks the cleaned result against what you actually said and falls back to a simpler pass if the cleanup looks implausibly long. Turning cleanup off in Settings still strips filler sounds and applies the deterministic commands.

Does dictation work in every app?

Yes, in any app with a standard text field, since the Parlo keyboard replaces your system keyboard rather than living inside one specific app. That covers Messages, Mail, Slack, Notes, and most other apps you type into on iPhone.

What happens to the recording afterward?

Audio is never saved. Parlo captures it, transcribes it on your device, and discards it. The finished dictation lands in your feed, encrypted at rest, so you can find it again later even after you have already inserted it once through the keyboard. History sync through your private iCloud is on by default and end-to-end encrypted; you can turn it off in Settings, or by not signing in with Apple.

What if something goes wrong?

If you speak and nothing comes back, check that Full Access is still turned on for the Parlo keyboard in Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards. If dictation says it needs a one-time download of the on-device speech model, connect to Wi-Fi or cellular data and try again. If you record nothing usable, Parlo shows "No speech detected" rather than saving an empty note. It is a beta, so reply to beta@parlokey.com with anything that looks wrong.

Do you have to set up the keyboard again after switching apps?

No. Once Parlo is added and Full Access is turned on, the setup stays in place across every app. Touching and holding the globe key to choose Parlo is the only thing you repeat each time you want to dictate instead of type. You only need to do it if Parlo was not already the active keyboard in that app.

What is different the first time you dictate?

The very first dictation on a fresh install may take a moment longer, since Apple's on-device speech model sometimes needs a one-time download before it can run. After that first run, transcription and cleanup both happen on the device without a similar wait. Beta builds of Parlo also refresh their text-transform prompts once a day from parlokey.com, a fetch that carries no user data and has nothing to do with your dictation audio or transcripts.

How do you get better results from dictation?

Speak at a normal pace and pause briefly between sentences. Add names, project terms, or anything else autocorrect keeps changing to your custom dictionary in Settings. This helps typing; it does not change what dictation hears.