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Dictation not typing in Mac Terminal? 6 fixes

If dictation types into Slack and your editor but nothing lands in Terminal or iTerm2, the most likely cause is Secure Keyboard Entry. It is a terminal setting that hides your keystrokes from other apps, and it can stop a dictation app from hearing its hotkey. Turn it off in the app menu (Terminal, then Secure Keyboard Entry) and try again.

If that is not it, work through the other five checks below in order. Each takes under a minute, and together they cover the usual reasons dictation does nothing in a terminal, whether you dictate into a plain shell, Claude Code, Codex or Cursor’s terminal.

Menu paths and app behaviour checked on 14 October 2026. Sources are linked at the end.

1. Turn off Secure Keyboard Entry in your terminal

Both Terminal and iTerm2 have a menu item called Secure Keyboard Entry. When it has a checkmark, macOS stops other programs from seeing what you type in that window.

  • Terminal: choose Terminal, then Secure Keyboard Entry.
  • iTerm2: choose iTerm2, then Secure Keyboard Entry.

That is a real security feature, and Apple’s own guide warns you to make sure no other app needs your keystrokes before you turn it on. A dictation app is exactly such an app. iTerm2’s documentation says the setting “may disable global hotkeys in other programs”, which is how most dictation apps start and stop recording.

The tell: your hotkey works in every app except the terminal, and starts working again the moment you click into another window.

If you want to keep the protection, you can switch it on only while you type a password and off again after. Security checklists such as Pareto Security recommend having it on, so a company laptop may have it switched on for you.

2. Find the app holding Secure Input

Secure Keyboard Entry is one way to turn on a system wide state called Secure Input. Other apps turn it on too, and sometimes they forget to turn it off. Typinator’s support docs list the usual suspects: password managers such as 1Password, Bitwarden and Dashlane while a password field is active, browsers with a login form open, Terminal itself, and the lock screen (loginwindow) after you lock and unlock your Mac.

When one of them holds it, every hotkey and text expander on the Mac can go quiet, not just in the terminal. In a long 1Password community thread, users report that global shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, Alfred snippets and even Apple’s own Dictation stopped working until 1Password was refocused or quit.

You do not have to guess which app it is. Run this in any terminal:

ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput

If Secure Input is on, the output includes kCGSSessionSecureInputPID followed by a number. That number is the process ID of the app holding it. Look it up:

ps -p 12345 -o pid=,comm=

Replace 12345 with the number you got. If the answer is a password manager, focus it and then switch back, or quit it. If it is loginwindow, a restart is the reliable fix. If the command prints nothing, Secure Input is off and you can move on.

3. Check the Accessibility permission

A dictation app that types into other apps needs permission to control your Mac. Open System Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Accessibility, and make sure your dictation app is listed and switched on. Check Input Monitoring on the same screen if your app asks for it.

If the app is already listed and switched on but still cannot type, remove it with the minus button, add it again, and relaunch it. An entry can look correct and still not match the copy of the app you are running, for example after an update or after moving it to another folder.

Microphone permission is a separate switch on the same screen. If the recording indicator never appears at all, check that one too.

4. Make sure the cursor is where you think it is

This sounds obvious, and it is easy to miss when you have five panes open. Dictation apps type at the focused text field. In a terminal that means:

  • the terminal window is the frontmost window, not just visible behind your editor,
  • you clicked into the pane you want, if you split panes in iTerm2, tmux or your editor’s terminal,
  • the agent is waiting for input. If Claude Code or Codex is still running a tool, the prompt is not ready to receive text.

A quick test: dictate “hello” into a fresh shell with no agent running. If it appears there and not in your agent, the problem is the agent’s input, not dictation.

5. Text appears only after you press a key

Some terminal apps draw dictated text late. A user reported on the openai/codex tracker that dictated text did not show in the Codex input line until they pressed another key. We cover that report, with its source, in our guide to dictating prompts into Codex CLI.

The short version: do not press Enter to make the text appear, because that sends a prompt you have not read. Press an arrow key instead, read, then send.

6. Your hotkey belongs to something else

Terminal apps take a lot of keys. A hotkey that works in your browser can be swallowed by your shell, tmux, or the agent itself. The Codex guide linked above has one such case, where a function key dictation shortcut opened Codex’s own Voice mode instead.

Pick a hotkey that no terminal program wants. A right side modifier, such as right Option or right Command, is a safe default: shells and tmux do not bind it, and you can hold it with one hand.

Still nothing? Narrow it down

Run the same test in three places, in this order:

  1. TextEdit. If dictation fails here too, it is the app, its permissions or Secure Input (checks 2 and 3).
  2. A plain shell in Terminal. If TextEdit works and this fails, it is Secure Keyboard Entry or focus (checks 1 and 4).
  3. Your agent’s prompt. If the shell works and the agent fails, it is the agent’s input or a hotkey clash (checks 5 and 6).

Where Akova fits

Akova is a Mac dictation app built for coding agents. It types at your cursor like any other dictation app, so every check above applies to it as well. What it adds is on the other side of the hotkey: it transcribes with on-device Whisper, learns your repo’s words through custom vocabulary, and Prompt mode turns a spoken ramble into a structured prompt before it types into Claude Code, Codex or your shell. It needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later on Apple Silicon.

Custom vocabulary is free. Prompt mode is part of Lifetime, and every Pro feature is free for 7 days after your first launch, with no card and no account. See pricing for what each tier includes, or read how to dictate prompts into Claude Code once your terminal is typing again.

Sources

Checked on 14 October 2026.