How Riff cleans up what you say
Riff edits each dictation before it reaches the caret. You choose how much in Settings under Dictation, and Riff chooses the style from the app you are writing in.
Cleanup levels
- Polished is the default. Riff removes filler words, fixes punctuation, applies spoken corrections such as “at 2, actually 3”, and formats spoken lists. It never adds content.
- Light follows rules only. Riff removes filler words and repeated words, and follows “scratch that”, “new line”, and “new paragraph”.
- Off writes what the recognizer heard, with only your replacements and snippets applied.
Polished uses a writing model, as described in Written with Private Cloud Compute. If the model does not answer within 2.5 seconds, or its answer is empty or much longer or shorter than what you said, Riff inserts the Light text instead.
When Private Cloud Compute reports that its daily limit is close, Riff polishes dictation with the model on your Mac and leaves the allowance for meeting notes.
Styles by app
Riff looks at the app in front when you press the key and writes in that app’s style.
| Apps | Default style |
|---|---|
| Messaging, such as Messages, Slack, and WhatsApp | Casual |
| Email, such as Mail, Outlook, and Spark | Formal |
| Code editors and terminals, such as Xcode, Visual Studio Code, and Terminal | Literal, never polished |
| Everything else, including documents and web browsers | Standard |
You can change the style for each group in Settings under Dictation.
Smart spacing
Riff reads the characters before the caret and adds a space or a capital letter where typing would, so a dictation in the middle of a sentence fits the text around it.
Language
Riff transcribes in your Mac’s language unless you choose another in Settings under Dictation. Transcribed on your Mac lists the languages each engine supports.