iPhone Dictation Not Working in Reminders? 10 Fixes That Work

Short answer: In Apple Reminders on iPhone, dictation comes from the mic on your keyboard, so the keyboard has to be showing. Tap New Reminder or the text of a reminder until a cursor blinks. If words go missing, check Completed, the notes line and the list it was saved to.

You open Reminders on your iPhone to get something down before you forget it, and you would rather say it than type it. You tap the mic on your keyboard and nothing happens. Or there is no mic. Or there is no keyboard at all, however many times you tap the list. Or you dictate a reminder, look again a moment later, and it is gone.

Reminders looks like the simplest app on your phone, which makes this all the more frustrating. But a reminder is more than a line of text. Each one has a title and a place for notes, a row of buttons above the keyboard for dates, locations, tags and flags, and a details screen with more fields behind it. Return does not start a new line. It saves the reminder and starts another one. Lists can be smart lists that gather reminders from elsewhere, shared lists that other people edit, or lists that belong to an account other than iCloud. And completed reminders are hidden by default. Any of these can make dictation look broken when it is not.

This guide works through every cause in order, starting with the most common. If dictation is failing in every app on your phone and not only in Reminders, start with our complete guide to iPhone dictation not working instead. The same fixes apply to Reminders on iPad.

Siri or the keyboard mic?

People mean two different things by "dictating a reminder", and they fail for different reasons.

Siri creates whole reminders for you. You say something like "remind me to call the dentist tomorrow at nine," and Siri works out the task and the time and adds it to Reminders. That depends on Siri being switched on and able to hear you, and it has nothing to do with the keyboard.

Keyboard dictation is for writing a reminder with your voice. You open Reminders, start a reminder, tap the mic key on your keyboard and speak, and the text arrives exactly as if you had typed it. This guide is about that second route. If it is Siri that is not adding your reminders, our explanation of Siri versus dictation on iPhone sets out where the two differ. They have separate settings, so one can work while the other does not.

One consequence of how keyboard dictation works: if the keyboard does not appear, there is no mic to tap. Most Reminders dictation problems are really "no keyboard" problems, and the keyboard only appears while a reminder is being edited.

The 30-second Notes test

Before you change anything, open the Notes app, create a new note, tap in the body so the keyboard appears, then tap the mic key and say a sentence.

• If dictation fails in Notes too, the problem is dictation on your iPhone, not Reminders. Go to fixes 8 and 10.
• If it works in Notes but no keyboard appears in Reminders, start with fix 1, then fix 4.
• If the keyboard appears but has no mic, or the mic will not start, go to fixes 2 and 8.
• If your words arrive but split into several reminders, turn into dates or tags, or disappear, go to fixes 3, 5, 6 and 9.

The 10 fixes, in order

1. Start a reminder, or tap its text

The Reminders home screen is a set of buttons: smart lists such as Today and Scheduled at the top, your own lists below, and a search bar. None of those take text. Tapping a list opens it, and opening a list still does not bring up the keyboard, because nothing is being edited yet.

To write a new reminder, open a list and tap New Reminder at the bottom of the screen, or tap the empty space below the last reminder. A new row appears with a blinking cursor, and the keyboard slides up. To change an existing reminder, tap directly on its words. Be careful not to tap the circle to their left, which marks the reminder as completed (fix 6 explains how to get it back).

Not every list is a place to add reminders. The Completed smart list only collects finished reminders, for example. If you cannot find New Reminder in the list you are looking at, go back and open one of your own lists instead.

2. Find the mic key on your keyboard

If the keyboard appears but there is no mic, check which keyboard is showing. Apple's mic key sits at the bottom of Apple's keyboard, on the right on most current iPhones. Many third-party keyboards have no mic of their own, so if one of those is active there is nothing to tap. Tap and hold the globe key and switch to Apple's keyboard, or to a third-party keyboard that has a built-in mic.

If Apple's keyboard is showing and still has no mic, dictation is turned off or restricted on your iPhone, which fix 10 covers.

3. Keep Return out of long reminders

In most apps, Return starts a new line. In Reminders, Return finishes the reminder you are writing and starts a fresh one below it. That is perfect when you dictate a shopping list one item at a time, and confusing when you dictate a long sentence. Saying "new line" or "new paragraph" while you dictate inserts a Return, so one thought can end up split across two or three reminders.

The title of a reminder is meant to be short. For detail, use the reminder's notes. Depending on your iOS version, a notes line appears under the title while you edit, and there is always a Notes field on the details screen you reach with the info button. Both are made for longer text, so you can dictate the context there and keep the title to a few words.

Empty reminders are the other side of this. If dictation fails and you tap away from a new reminder that has no text in it, Reminders simply discards it. That can look as though your words vanished, when in fact nothing was captured in the first place.

4. Close the pickers above the keyboard

While you edit a reminder, a row of buttons sits above the keyboard for adding a date, a location, a tag, a flag or a photo. Tapping one of them opens a picker or a menu, and while it is open the keyboard, and its mic, can disappear or stop sending text to the reminder. The details screen behind the info button works the same way. Most of its settings, such as date, time and location, are switches and pickers rather than text boxes, and only a few fields there, such as the title, notes and URL, take typing.

If the mic disappears after you tap one of those buttons, finish or cancel the picker, then tap back into the reminder's text so the keyboard returns. It is easiest to dictate the words first and set dates and places with the buttons afterwards.

5. Watch for dates and tags pulled from your words

Reminders reads what you type, and dictated text counts as typing. Depending on your iOS version, when a reminder mentions a day or a time, such as "tomorrow" or "at 3pm", Reminders may spot it and offer to use it as the reminder's date. That is often handy. But if a reminder ends up with a date you did not expect, or the title looks different from what you said, open the details screen and check both.

Tags work in a similar way. A word typed straight after a hash sign becomes a tag, and it moves out of the title into the reminder's tags. If you say "hashtag" while dictating, dictation may type the symbol, and the word after it turns into a tag. Nothing is lost: the word is on the reminder as a tag, and you can delete the tag and put the word back in the title if you want it there.

6. Look in Completed and in the right list

Reminders hides finished items. If you tapped the circle next to a reminder instead of its words, perhaps while trying to put the cursor in it, you marked it complete, and it drops out of view shortly afterwards. Open the list's menu and choose to show completed reminders, or open the Completed smart list, then tap the circle again to bring the reminder back.

Where a new reminder is saved also depends on where you created it. One added in your own list goes into that list. One added from a smart list such as Today usually goes into your default list, with that smart list's condition applied, so it may not be where you go looking for it later. You can check which list is the default in the Reminders section of the Settings app.

Some lists move things around on their own. A list set up as a grocery list can sort new items into sections, so an item you dictate can jump from where you were looking into a section further down. If you use sections or the column layout in your own lists, check that the cursor was in the section you meant before you spoke.

7. Check the account and iCloud sync

Reminders can hold lists from more than one account. Most people use iCloud, but lists can also live only on the iPhone, or come from a work account such as Exchange. Lists from other accounts often support fewer features than iCloud lists, so buttons such as tags or flags may be missing, and a work account's lists may follow rules set by your organization.

If a reminder you dictated on your iPhone never shows up on your Mac or iPad, check sync. In the Settings app, tap your name, then iCloud, and make sure Reminders is turned on, on every device, and that every device is signed in to the same Apple Account. A list that lives on your iPhone rather than in iCloud never leaves the phone.

Shared lists need a little care. Everyone a list is shared with can add and change reminders, and changes sync to all of them, so something you dictated can be edited or completed by someone else. If the owner stops sharing the list or deletes it, it disappears from your Reminders along with anything you added. For anything you need to keep, dictate into a list you own.

8. Free up the microphone

Dictation needs the microphone to itself. A phone or FaceTime call, a video call in another app, or a recording app still running in the background can all keep hold of it, and dictation may refuse to start until they let go. End the call or stop the recording, then try again.

Headphones are the next suspect. If the mic key does nothing, or dictation starts and gives up at once, disconnect your Bluetooth earbuds or headset and test with the iPhone's own microphone. If that works, the problem is the headset connection, not Reminders. Our guide to iPhone dictation not working with AirPods walks through the headphone side.

9. Find words that landed somewhere else

If you dictated and the text seems to be missing, it usually went somewhere you were not looking. Check these in order:

• The next reminder down. A spoken line break may have split your sentence in two (fix 3).
• The notes. If the cursor was in the notes line, your words sit under the title in smaller text, and on the details screen.
• Completed. A tapped circle hides the reminder (fix 6).
• Another list or section. Reminders added from a smart list, or to a grocery list, may be somewhere other than where you were looking (fix 6).
• The date or tags. Part of a sentence may have become a date or a tag (fix 5).
• The search bar. If search was active, your words became a search, not a reminder.

If you cannot find a reminder at all, type a word from it into the search bar on the Reminders home screen, which looks across your lists. And if you replaced something by accident, remember that dictation replaces any selected text, just as typing does. Shake to undo straight away, then tap once where you want new words so nothing is highlighted before you tap the mic.

10. Check dictation on your iPhone

If dictation failed in Notes too, the problem is on the phone. Open Settings, go to General, then Keyboard, and make sure Enable Dictation is on. If the switch is missing or greyed out, check Screen Time: under Content & Privacy Restrictions, open the allowed apps list and make sure Siri & Dictation is allowed. A work or school iPhone may also restrict dictation through its management profile.

Make sure the keyboard language matches the language you are speaking, since dictation follows the active keyboard. Then install any pending iOS update, and if nothing else has worked, restart your iPhone. A restart clears stuck audio sessions and keyboard processes in one step.

Reminders quirks that look like broken dictation

• Dictation stops halfway through a thought. iPhone dictation stops when you pause. Our guide to iPhone dictation that keeps stopping explains what you can do about it.
• Punctuation is missing or wrong. iPhone dictation adds punctuation automatically unless Auto-Punctuation is turned off under Settings, General, then Keyboard. You can also say punctuation such as "comma" and "question mark" out loud.
• Every new line becomes a subtask. When you are editing an indented reminder, Return usually starts another subtask at the same level. To get back to a top-level reminder, tap New Reminder at the bottom of the list instead.
• The keyboard closes while you are talking. Scrolling the list or tapping another reminder can end editing, which closes the keyboard and stops dictation. Keep your thumb off the screen until your words have arrived.
• Names come out wrong. People's names, medicines and place names are the words dictation mishears most. Read them back, because a reminder is only useful if you can understand it later.

Quick triage

• No keyboard when you open a list: nothing is being edited yet. Fix 1.
• Keyboard has no mic: a keyboard without a mic, or dictation off. Fixes 2 and 10.
• One sentence became several reminders: Return. Fix 3.
• Mic vanished after tapping a button: a picker is open. Fix 4.
• Title is missing words, or a tag appeared: a date or tag was picked out. Fix 5.
• Reminder vanished right after you made it: completed, or saved to another list. Fix 6.
• Reminder is on your iPhone but not your Mac: account or iCloud sync. Fix 7.
• Mic starts then stops at once: microphone busy or Bluetooth. Fix 8.
• Words went missing: check the places in fix 9.
• Fails in Notes too: iPhone dictation settings. Fix 10.

Reminders on iPhone versus Reminders on Mac

On a Mac, you dictate into Reminders with a keyboard shortcut rather than a mic key, so the usual trap is a click that leaves the cursor in the sidebar or the search field rather than inside a reminder. The Return rule is the same on both: it saves the reminder and starts another. On iPhone everything runs through the keyboard, so the first question is always whether the keyboard appeared, and whether it has a mic. Our guide to adding reminders by voice on iPhone and Mac covers setup on both, including when Siri is the quicker choice.

A dictation workflow that suits Reminders

• One reminder per breath. Tap New Reminder, say a short title, press Return, and say the next. You can empty your head of a dozen to-dos in a minute.
• Details go in notes. Keep the title short enough to scan, and dictate the context into the notes.
• Dates and places by button. Tap the date or location button once the words are in, rather than hoping a spoken date gets picked up.
• Use Siri when your hands are full. For a quick one-liner with a time attached, asking Siri is faster than opening the app at all.
• Read back before you lock the phone. A misheard name or number is much harder to decode tomorrow than it is right now.

It is worth getting right, because speaking is much faster than typing. Most adults type around 40 words per minute on a full keyboard, and even professional typists usually sit around 80 to 100, while normal speech runs at 130 to 150 words per minute. On a phone the gap is wider still, and a to-do app is where speed matters most: the reminder you do not write down in the moment is the one you forget.

A keyboard with a mic that works in every list

Apple's dictation is free and built in, but it stops when you pause, it depends on settings that are easy to switch off by accident, and fixing a misheard word means going back and editing by hand.

Voice Keyboard Pro is a custom iPhone keyboard with a built-in mic button for dictation in any iOS app, Reminders included. Start a reminder, tap the mic, speak, and your words are added at the cursor. Because it is a keyboard rather than a feature of one app, it works the same way in Reminders, Notes, Messages and everywhere else you type. Like any keyboard, it only appears while Reminders is editing text, so fixes 1, 3 and 4 still apply.

A few features help with to-do lists in particular:

• Voice Edit lets you speak a change to fix text, so you can correct a time or a name in a reminder without selecting and retyping it on a small screen.
• Two-way translation while dictating, across 24 languages, lets you speak in one language and write in another, which helps with a list shared across a household that reads different languages.
• Swipe typing is there for the moments when speaking out loud is not practical.

Setup means adding the keyboard in Settings and allowing Full Access so it can reach the transcription service. Our guide to enabling Full Access for an iPhone keyboard explains what that permission does. On privacy, our servers store only operational pings. No audio and no transcript content is stored. There is a free tier with daily limits, and Pro is $4.99 a month or $34.99 a year. On a Mac, the same app lives in your menu bar: hold a hotkey, speak, release, and the text appears at your cursor, in Reminders or anywhere else.

Frequently asked questions

Why doesn't the keyboard appear in Reminders?

Nothing is being edited yet. Opening a list shows your reminders but does not start one. Tap New Reminder at the bottom of a list, or tap the words of an existing reminder, and the keyboard will appear with its mic.

Why did my dictation turn into several reminders?

Return in Reminders saves the current reminder and starts a new one, and saying "new line" while dictating does the same. Keep titles to one short phrase and dictate longer text into the reminder's notes.

Why did my reminder disappear after I dictated it?

It was most likely marked complete by a tap on its circle, saved to your default list from a smart list, or sorted into a section of a grocery list. Fix 6 shows where to look, and the search bar on the Reminders home screen looks across your lists.

Is Siri the same as dictation in Reminders?

No. Siri creates a whole reminder from a spoken request, while keyboard dictation types your words into a reminder you are editing. They have separate settings, so one can work while the other does not.

Does this work the same way on iPad?

Yes. Reminders on iPad has the same lists, buttons, Return behaviour and sync, so every fix here applies.

What to do next

Run the 30-second Notes test, then work through the fixes that match what you saw. For most people it is fix 1: a list was open, but no reminder was being edited, so there was no keyboard and no mic. If your sentence split up, it is fix 3, and if a reminder vanished, check fix 6 before dictating it again. And if you want dictation that works the same way in every app on your phone, try Voice Keyboard Pro's free tier on your next list.