iPhone Dictation Not Working in Medium? 10 Fixes That Work

Short answer: Medium's iPhone app has no dictation of its own. The mic lives on your keyboard, and a story you are reading never shows one. Open the editor from the write button or a draft, tap below the title until a cursor blinks, then tap the keyboard mic.

You open Medium on your iPhone with a paragraph already formed in your head, and you would rather say it than thumb-type it. You look for the mic and there is no keyboard at all. Or the keyboard is there, and your whole opening paragraph arrives as one enormous headline. Or you try to dictate a correction into a story you published last week and nothing happens. Or the three paragraphs you spoke on the train are missing when you open the draft on your laptop that evening.

Three facts explain almost all of it. The first is that Medium does not do the dictating. On iPhone, dictation comes from the mic on your keyboard, and the keyboard only appears when a text field is ready to receive typing. Medium receives your words exactly as if you had typed them.

The second is that the Medium app is, most of the time, a reading app. The home feed, a story opened to read, your library and your profile are all screens to look at. None of them has a cursor, so none of them shows a keyboard. Writing happens in one place, the editor, and you have to open it on purpose.

The third is that the editor is not one big box. The first line is the title. Image captions, the link box, the topics on the publish screen and the response box under a story are all separate fields, and dictated text goes into whichever one holds the cursor.

So in Medium, "dictation is not working" usually means there was no cursor, or the cursor was somewhere other than where you thought. This guide works through every cause in order, most common first. If dictation is failing in every app on your phone and not only in Medium, our full list of iPhone dictation fixes is the better place to start. Medium updates its app often, so the exact names and positions of buttons may differ a little from what you see on your screen.

Which Medium screen are you on?

Only some screens in the app take text. Knowing which one you are on settles a good share of the confusion below.

• The editor. You reach it from the write button, or by opening one of your drafts. It shows a title line, the body below it, and a bar of formatting buttons above the keyboard. This is the only place where a story can be dictated.
• A story you are reading. It can look very much like the editor, especially when the story is your own. It is a screen for reading. Pressing on a paragraph selects text. It never gives you a typing cursor.
• Home, search and your library. These are lists of stories. They are links, not places to write. The search bar is the one text field among them.
• The publish screen. It appears when you choose to publish, and it holds a few short fields, such as topics.
• Responses. A panel that opens under a story, with a box for replying to the writer.
• Profile settings. Your name and your bio are small fields of their own.

How dictation reaches Medium on an iPhone

Apple's keyboard mic

Apple's keyboard has a mic key, usually at the bottom right. Tap it, speak, and iOS turns your speech into text at the cursor. It needs Enable Dictation switched on in Settings and a text field with a cursor in it. Medium does not need any permission for this, because the keyboard handles the microphone.

A third-party keyboard with a mic

Keyboards from the App Store, including ours, can have a mic button of their own. They also appear only while a field is being edited, they usually need Full Access before the mic can work, and they need their own microphone permission. Again, Medium does not need to be granted anything.

What Medium itself adds

Nothing. The editor has no microphone button, and nothing in the app listens to you. Where a story shows a Listen or play button, that button reads the story aloud. It is playback, and it has nothing to do with writing.

That leaves one rule to remember: dictated text goes wherever the cursor is, and Medium treats it exactly like typing. A sentence in the body is part of your story. The same sentence on the first line is your title. In a caption it is a caption, and in the topics field it is a search for a topic that does not exist.

The 30-second test

Before you change anything, find out where the problem actually is.

1. Open Notes, start a new note, tap the mic on your keyboard and say a sentence.
2. Open Medium, tap the write button to start a new story that you can throw away, and tap the line below the title so that the cursor blinks there.
3. Dictate the same sentence and watch where it lands.

• If Notes fails too, the problem is dictation on your iPhone, not Medium. Go to fixes 2, 9 and 10.
• If Notes works but there is no keyboard in Medium, nothing on the screen has focus. Start at fix 1.
• If the keyboard is there but it has no mic, go to fix 2.
• If your words became the title, go to fix 3.
• If your words landed in a caption, a link box or the search bar, go to fix 4.
• If text that was already there disappeared, or your paragraph came out as a heading or a quote, go to fix 5.
• If paragraphs ran together, or dictation stopped partway, go to fix 6.
• If the trouble was on the publish screen or in a response, go to fix 7.
• If your words were there and are gone now, go to fix 8.

Half a minute here saves you from changing settings that were never the problem.

The 10 fixes, in order

1. Open the editor, because a story you are reading has no keyboard

This is behind most "there is no mic" reports. On iPhone the keyboard only comes up when a text field has focus, and a story opened for reading is not a text field. Press on one of its paragraphs and Medium selects text, and may offer a small menu for highlighting or responding. It does not give you a cursor. This catches writers who open their own story from their profile, see their own words, and wait for a keyboard that never comes.

What to do:

• For a new story, tap the write button. Medium has moved it between versions, so look for a pencil icon or a Write label.
• For a draft, open your list of stories, which you can usually reach from your profile, find the draft, and open it. Drafts open in the editor.
• For a story that is already published, open the story's menu and look for an option to edit it. If your version of the app does not offer one, sign in to Medium on a computer and edit the story there.
• Check for the signs of the editor before you look for the mic: a blinking cursor, a keyboard, and a bar of formatting buttons above it.
• If Medium shows a sign-in screen instead, your session has ended. Sign in and open the draft again.

One more thing belongs here. Changes to a published story may not be live until you save or publish them again. If you dictated a correction and readers still see the old sentence, dictation worked. The story was simply not republished.

2. Make sure the keyboard on screen has a mic

If the keyboard is up but has no mic, check which keyboard it is. Hold the globe key to see the keyboards you have installed, and choose one with a mic. A third-party keyboard needs Full Access switched on in Settings before its mic will work.

Three other things hide the mic. A Bluetooth keyboard connected to your iPhone replaces the on-screen keyboard, and the mic goes with it, so switch that keyboard off or disconnect it. Password fields anywhere on an iPhone use Apple's keyboard with dictation turned off on purpose, so you will not see a working mic while you type a password. And if Apple's keyboard is showing with no mic anywhere, dictation is switched off or restricted, which fix 10 covers.

The bar of formatting buttons that Medium places above the keyboard is not part of the keyboard. None of its buttons is a microphone, and none of them starts dictation. The mic is below that bar, on the keyboard itself.

3. Tap below the title before you speak

A new story opens with the cursor on the first line, and the first line is the title. Everything you dictate before you move the cursor becomes the title, in large type, however long it runs. If your whole opening paragraph came out as one enormous headline, this is why.

The body is the line below the title, and it shows a faint placeholder until you put something in it. It accepts text only while the cursor is blinking inside it. Plenty of ordinary actions take the cursor out again: tapping an image, opening a menu from the formatting bar, pulling down your notifications, or switching to another app and coming back. The story looks just as it did before, but the keyboard may have dropped away, and with it the cursor.

What to do:

• Tap at the exact place where you want the words, look for the blinking cursor, and only then reach for the mic.
• If the title swallowed a paragraph, double-tap a word in it, drag the handles until the whole paragraph is covered, and choose Cut. Tap in the body, paste, then type a short title.
• On a small screen the keyboard and the formatting bar cover the lower half of the story. Scroll until you can see the line you are filling in.
• If the cursor is blinking in the body and dictated text still does not arrive, go to fixes 9 and 10.

4. Keep your words out of the small fields

The editor and the screens around it have several places that accept typing and are not the story. It is easy to leave the cursor in any of them.

• The caption under an image. Tap an image and a caption line can appear beneath it. Text dictated there is small and sits under the picture. It is a caption, not a paragraph.
• Alt text. An image can also carry alt text, the description read out by screen readers. It is a good thing to fill in, but it is not shown in the story.
• The link box. Choosing the link button opens a small box that expects a web address. A sentence dictated there becomes a broken link. Copy the address and paste it instead, because a spoken address comes out with spaces and capital letters in the wrong places.
• The mention list. An @ sign can open a list of people. The choice is made by tapping, not by speaking. Dictate your sentence first, then add the mention by hand.
• The search bar. It is a text field like any other. A paragraph dictated there becomes a search.
• The name of a reading list. When you save a story to a new list, the name field takes text. Keep it to a few words.

If your words went into one of these, select them, choose Cut, tap where the text belongs in the body and paste. Shaking the phone, or swiping left with three fingers, undoes the last thing you did in most iPhone text fields.

5. Check what is selected, and which style is switched on

Dictation replaces whatever is selected, exactly as typing does. That matters more in Medium than in most apps, because selecting text is how you format it. You highlight a phrase to make it bold or to add a link, and when you are done the phrase is often still highlighted. The next thing you dictate replaces it. Tap once where you want the new words, so that nothing is highlighted, before you speak.

The formatting bar has a memory too. If you turned on a heading, a quote or bold for one line, the style can stay on, and whatever you dictate next arrives in it. If your paragraph came out as a large heading or as an indented quote, the words are fine and the style is wrong. Put the cursor in the paragraph and tap the same style button again to switch it off.

Medium's editor can also turn a line into a list when it starts with a number and a period, or with an asterisk or a dash. A dictated sentence that begins with a number can trip this. If a sentence turned into a list item, undo once straight away, or put the cursor at the start of the line and press delete to turn the list off.

6. Know what a line break does, and why dictation stops

Medium is built around paragraphs, and Return means different things in different places.

• In the title, Return moves the cursor down into the body. It does not make a second title line.
• In the body, each Return starts a new paragraph, with space above it.
• In a short field, such as the search bar or a list name, Return submits what is there.

With Apple dictation, saying "new line" or "new paragraph" inserts a break in most languages, and in Medium's body either one gives you a new paragraph. If those words are written out instead of acted on, your keyboard or your dictation language does not support the command, so tap Return yourself between paragraphs. Other keyboards handle spoken commands in their own way.

Apple dictation can also end on its own after a pause. If you stopped to think and the mic went quiet, tap it again where you left off. For a long piece, speak one paragraph at a time and read each one before you start the next. It is slower than talking for five minutes straight, but nothing is lost, and misheard words are caught while you still remember what you said.

7. Treat the publish screen and responses as separate fields

The publish screen. Topics are short labels, not sentences. Say one or two words, then tap a suggestion from the list. A dictated sentence matches nothing, and Medium only allows a small number of topics on a story. Any preview fields on this screen are short as well. If you dictated your first paragraph here, cut it and paste it back into the story.

Responses. The response box under a story is a prompt until you tap it. Tap it, wait for the field and the keyboard, then dictate. If you tapped Reply under someone else's response, what you say goes to that person and not to the writer of the story. A response is public once you post it, so read it first. If a mistake gets through, the menu on your own response usually lets you edit or delete it.

8. Give the draft time to save, and use one device at a time

Medium saves a draft as you write and keeps it with your account, which is how it appears on your other devices. That needs a connection. Dictating on a train or a plane is the classic way to lose words: the text sits on your phone waiting to be sent, and if the app is closed before the connection comes back, some of it may not arrive.

• Before you leave the editor or lock the phone, pause for a moment on a good connection so that the draft can save. If the app shows a save status, wait for it to say that the draft is saved.
• Do not keep the same draft open on your Mac and on your phone at once. Each has its own copy of the text, and the one that saves last can overwrite the other. Close the draft on one device before you open it on the other.
• For a long piece or a poor signal, dictate in Notes first and paste into Medium when you are back online.
• If words seem to be missing, check your list of drafts. It is easy to start a second new story instead of reopening the first, and the missing paragraphs are often sitting in an untitled draft.
• On the web, a story's menu may offer a revision history that holds earlier versions.

9. Free the microphone and check the connection

Your iPhone's microphone is usually used by one thing at a time. A phone or FaceTime call, a meeting in another app, a voice memo that is still recording or a video recording can all hold it. The symptom is a mic that starts and stops straight away, or shows that it is listening while nothing appears. End the call or recording, go back to Medium and try again.

Depending on your iPhone and language, dictation may also need an internet connection, and a keyboard that transcribes in the cloud always does. If you use a VPN and dictation hangs or returns nothing, switch the VPN off for a moment and test again. Our guide to dictation not working on a VPN explains what to change if that turns out to be the cause.

If you use a third-party keyboard, check that its app has microphone permission in Settings as well as Full Access. If you declined the permission once, the mic fails silently until you turn it back on.

10. Check your iPhone's dictation settings

If dictation fails in Notes too, work through the iPhone side:

• Dictation is on. Open Settings → General → Keyboard and make sure Enable Dictation is switched on.
• It is not restricted. Screen Time can block Siri and dictation under Content & Privacy Restrictions. A phone managed by an employer or a school can also have dictation restricted, in which case the switch cannot be changed.
• The language matches. Dictation uses the language of the keyboard on screen. If text arrives but is consistently wrong, switch to the keyboard for the language you are speaking.
• The right microphone is listening. A case or dust can cover the microphones, and connected Bluetooth earbuds can take over from the phone's own mic. Record a short voice memo and play it back to check.
• Restart and update. Restart your iPhone, then update iOS, Medium and your keyboard app.

Medium quirks that look like broken dictation

• The Listen button is not a microphone. It plays the story aloud. Tapping it will never produce text.
• A story went quiet when you tapped the mic. iOS usually pauses other audio while the microphone is listening. If a story was being read aloud, start it again afterwards.
• You are in a browser, not the app. Medium in Safari on an iPhone is built mainly for reading, and it may ask you to open the app when you try to write. Where it does give you a field, that field behaves like any other web form, and our guide to iPhone dictation not working in Safari covers that side.
• A link opened Medium inside another app. A story opened from a link in an email or a social app often appears in that app's built-in browser, where you may not be signed in. Open it in the Medium app before you try to respond.
• The line is under the keyboard. The line you tapped can scroll out of view behind the keyboard. Scroll until you can see where your words are going.
• The phone is sideways. In landscape, the keyboard leaves very little room for the story above it. Turn the phone upright while you dictate.
• The title looks wrong after publishing. Whatever sat on the first line is the headline readers see. If the headline is your first sentence, the story has no real title yet. Edit it and add one.

Quick reference

• No keyboard at all: you are reading a story, not editing one. Fix 1.
• Keyboard but no mic: a keyboard without a mic, a hardware keyboard, a password field, or dictation off. Fixes 2 and 10.
• A paragraph became the headline: the cursor was on the title line. Fix 3.
• Words in a caption, a link or the search bar: the cursor was in a small field. Fix 4.
• Text vanished, or arrived as a heading or a quote: something was selected, or a style was still on. Fix 5.
• Paragraphs ran together, or dictation stopped: spoken line breaks or a pause. Fix 6.
• A topic refused a sentence, or a reply went to the wrong person: the publish screen and responses are their own fields. Fix 7.
• Words missing on another device: the draft had not saved, or two devices had it open. Fix 8.
• Mic starts and stops at once: something else has the microphone. Fix 9.
• Fails in Notes too: iPhone settings. Fix 10.

Medium on iPhone versus other apps and the Mac

Because every iPhone app shares the same keyboard, the core fixes are the same wherever you dictate: get a cursor into a real field, check the keyboard, and let your work save before you leave. What differs is the app around the field. Medium's own habits are the title line, the formatting bar and a draft that lives on its servers. If you publish in more than one place, we have matching guides for iPhone dictation not working in Substack and in WordPress.

Medium on a Mac is a different story. There it is a website in a browser, dictation is started with a shortcut or a hotkey and not from a key on screen, and the editor reacts to more of the characters you send it. Our guide to Mac dictation not working in Medium covers that side, and how to dictate blog posts in Medium covers the everyday workflow on both devices.

A dictation workflow that suits Medium on iPhone

• Body first, title last. Tap below the title, dictate the story, and add a short title at the end, when you know what the piece turned out to be about.
• One paragraph at a time. Speak a paragraph, read it, fix what was misheard, then move on.
• Format on a second pass. Get the words down first. Add headings, bold and links afterwards, ideally on a bigger screen.
• Use Notes when the signal is poor. A note saves on the phone itself. Paste it into Medium when you are back online.
• Paste your links. Copy the address before you open the link box.
• Read it back before you publish. A misheard name is much easier to fix in a draft than in a story people have already read.

The habit is worth building, because speaking is far faster than typing. Most adults type around 40 words per minute on a computer keyboard, and professional typists usually reach 80 to 100. Normal speech runs at 130 to 150 words per minute. On a phone, where every word costs several taps, that gap is hard to ignore, and a first draft is exactly the kind of writing where speed matters more than polish.

A keyboard with a mic that works in Medium and everywhere else

Apple's built-in dictation is free and, once the fixes above are sorted, works well for a short response or a quick paragraph. If you draft whole stories on your phone, a keyboard built around dictation can make the longer pieces much faster.

Voice Keyboard Pro is a custom iPhone keyboard with a built-in mic button for dictation in any iOS app. Open a draft in Medium, tap below the title, tap the mic, speak, and your words are added at the cursor, the same way they would be in Mail, Messages or Notes. Because it is a keyboard and not a feature of Medium, it does not depend on anything inside the Medium app. It does still need a text field with a cursor in it, so fix 1 comes first. And like any keyboard, it only appears while a field has focus, and iOS swaps in Apple's keyboard for password fields.

• Voice Edit lets you speak a change to fix text. Say what should be different, such as a misheard name in the middle of a paragraph, and skip the fiddly cursor work on a small screen.
• Two-way translation while dictating covers 24 languages, which helps when you want to publish or respond in a language you do not write comfortably.
• Swipe typing is built in for the moments when a word is quicker to swipe than to say.

Setup means adding the keyboard in Settings and allowing Full Access so that it can reach the transcription service. On privacy, our servers store only operational pings. No audio and no transcript content is stored, which matters when what you are dictating is a draft nobody has read yet. On iPhone there is a free tier with daily limits, and Pro is $4.99 a month or $34.99 a year. On a Mac, Voice Keyboard Pro is a menu bar app: hold a hotkey, speak, release, and the text appears at your cursor in any app, a Medium draft in your browser included.

Frequently asked questions

Why is there no mic in Medium on my iPhone?

The dictation mic is part of the keyboard, not Medium, and the keyboard only appears when a text field has a cursor. A story you are reading has none. Open the editor from the write button or from a draft, tap below the title, wait for the cursor to blink, and the mic appears on the keyboard.

Does the Medium app have voice typing?

No. Medium has no dictation of its own for stories, responses or anything else. The Listen button on a story plays it aloud. Dictation comes from Apple's keyboard or from a third-party keyboard with a mic.

Why did my whole paragraph become the title?

A new story opens with the cursor on the first line, and the first line is the title. Cut the paragraph, tap the line below, paste it there, and type a short title.

Can I dictate into a story I have already published?

Only once it is open for editing. Open the story's menu and look for an option to edit it. If your version of the app does not offer one, edit the story on the web. Remember to save or publish your changes afterwards.

Does Medium need microphone permission for dictation?

No. Apple's keyboard and third-party keyboards handle the microphone themselves. You do not need to grant Medium anything for dictation to work.

Why are the paragraphs I dictated missing on my Mac?

The draft had not finished saving when you closed the app, or the same draft was open on both devices and one copy overwrote the other. Check your drafts for an untitled story, and in future let the draft save on a good connection before you switch devices.

Can I write on Medium in Safari on my iPhone?

Medium's website on a phone is built mainly for reading and may send you to the app when you try to write. For dictating a story on an iPhone, the app is the dependable route.

What to do next

Run the 30-second test, then work through the fixes that match what you saw. If there was no keyboard, you were reading a story and not editing one (fix 1). If a paragraph became the headline, the cursor was on the title line (fix 3). If words went missing or arrived in the wrong style, something was selected or a style was still on (fix 5). If the draft looks different on your other device, it had not finished saving (fix 8). And if you want a keyboard with a mic that works the same in Medium and every other app on your phone, try Voice Keyboard Pro's free tier on your next draft.