After upgrading to macOS Tahoe 26, Dictation (F5) stopped working for me.
Symptom:
- Pressing F5 produced a low/descending failure tone (not my normal system alert sound)
- No orange mic indicator appeared
- No transcription in TextEdit (so not browser-specific)
Context:
- Using an Apple Studio Display microphone (shows as “USB” in Sound settings — normal)
- Mic input levels moved correctly in System Settings → Sound → Input
What I tried (did NOT fix it):
- Verified Dictation was ON and mic source set correctly (Automatic and explicit selection)
- Tested in TextEdit to rule out app-specific issue
- Force-quit “coreaudiod” in Activity Monitor
- Deleted Siri & Dictation history; toggled Siri and Dictation off/on
- Restarted multiple times
- Restarted speech-related processes in Activity Monitor
What ultimately fixed it:
Reset the speech recognition preference files and restart speech services.
In Terminal (run these as separate commands):
1) Open Terminal:
Finder → Applications → Utilities → Terminal
— or —
Press ⌘ command + space, type “terminal”, and press return.
2) Copy/paste ONE line at a time, pressing return after each line.
[Everything shown on each line below should be copied exactly as written, including the “2>/dev/null” portion at the end of some lines.]
mkdir -p ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.plist ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup 2>/dev/null
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.recognition*.plist ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup 2>/dev/null
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore*.plist ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup 2>/dev/null
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.plist
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.recognition*.plist
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore*.plist
killall corespeechd 2>/dev/null
killall assistantd 2>/dev/null
killall SiriNCService 2>/dev/null
3) Restart your Mac when finished.
After reboot:
- I received the “Do you want to enable Dictation?” prompt again
- Clicked OK
- Dictation immediately worked (orange mic indicator returned; transcription worked in TextEdit)
This worked for me, and hopefully it will for you as well. Posting here in case it saves someone else the time and energy of trial and error.
Symptom:
- Pressing F5 produced a low/descending failure tone (not my normal system alert sound)
- No orange mic indicator appeared
- No transcription in TextEdit (so not browser-specific)
Context:
- Using an Apple Studio Display microphone (shows as “USB” in Sound settings — normal)
- Mic input levels moved correctly in System Settings → Sound → Input
What I tried (did NOT fix it):
- Verified Dictation was ON and mic source set correctly (Automatic and explicit selection)
- Tested in TextEdit to rule out app-specific issue
- Force-quit “coreaudiod” in Activity Monitor
- Deleted Siri & Dictation history; toggled Siri and Dictation off/on
- Restarted multiple times
- Restarted speech-related processes in Activity Monitor
What ultimately fixed it:
Reset the speech recognition preference files and restart speech services.
In Terminal (run these as separate commands):
1) Open Terminal:
Finder → Applications → Utilities → Terminal
— or —
Press ⌘ command + space, type “terminal”, and press return.
2) Copy/paste ONE line at a time, pressing return after each line.
[Everything shown on each line below should be copied exactly as written, including the “2>/dev/null” portion at the end of some lines.]
mkdir -p ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.plist ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup 2>/dev/null
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.recognition*.plist ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup 2>/dev/null
cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore*.plist ~/Desktop/speech_reset_backup 2>/dev/null
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.plist
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.recognition*.plist
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore*.plist
killall corespeechd 2>/dev/null
killall assistantd 2>/dev/null
killall SiriNCService 2>/dev/null
3) Restart your Mac when finished.
After reboot:
- I received the “Do you want to enable Dictation?” prompt again
- Clicked OK
- Dictation immediately worked (orange mic indicator returned; transcription worked in TextEdit)
This worked for me, and hopefully it will for you as well. Posting here in case it saves someone else the time and energy of trial and error.
Last edited: