iPhone Dictation Not Working in Scrivener? 10 Fixes That Work

Short answer: If iPhone dictation is not working in Scrivener, open a text document from the binder and tap inside its text until the keyboard appears, then tap the mic. Scrivener has no dictation of its own. Folders, research files, titles, synopses and Dropbox sync cause most other failures.

You have twenty minutes on a train and a scene you have been turning over all morning, so you open Scrivener on your iPhone to talk it into the draft. Then it goes wrong. There is no mic to tap. Or the keyboard is up, you speak a whole paragraph, and it lands in the document's title, in its synopsis, or in the search field at the top of the binder. Or the scene is right there on your phone, and missing when you open the project on your Mac that evening.

Three things about Scrivener on iPhone explain almost all of it. First, Scrivener has no dictation of its own. On iPhone the mic lives on the keyboard, and the keyboard only appears when a cursor is in some text, so a project that is open on screen is not the same as a document you are editing. Second, a Scrivener project is full of things that are not your draft: folders, research files, document titles, synopses and notes. Some of them have no text to type into, and others are text fields that will happily take your words if they hold the cursor. Third, your words only reach your other devices when a sync runs, and Scrivener on iPhone syncs with your Mac through Dropbox.

So most Scrivener dictation problems are about getting a cursor into the right document and getting the words home afterwards, not about your microphone. 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 Scrivener, start with our complete guide to iPhone dictation not working instead. Everything here applies to Scrivener on iPad as well.

How dictation reaches Scrivener on iPhone

Scrivener has no voice typing feature of its own on iPhone. Dictation comes from the keyboard. You open a document, tap into its text, the keyboard slides up, you tap the mic key and speak, and the words arrive at the cursor as if you had typed them. Scrivener cannot tell the difference, and it treats dictated text exactly as it treats typing.

That gives you a simple rule for everything that follows. If there is no keyboard on screen, there is no mic to tap, and the question is why Scrivener has not given you a cursor. If the keyboard is up and the mic is missing or does nothing, the question is about the keyboard and the phone. If the words arrive but in the wrong place, or go missing later, the question is about the project. One more thing to keep apart: Scrivener can show a row of extra keys and tools just above the keyboard. That row belongs to Scrivener. The mic belongs to the keyboard underneath it.

The 30-second Notes test

Before you change anything, open the Notes app, create a new note, tap in the body so that 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 Scrivener. Go to fixes 8 and 10.
• If it works in Notes but there is no keyboard in Scrivener, go to fixes 1, 2 and 3.
• If the keyboard is up but has no mic, go to fix 4.
• If your words landed in a title, a synopsis, a note or the search, go to fix 5.
• If your words landed in the wrong document or the wrong spot, go to fix 6.
• If a scene you dictated on your iPhone is missing on your Mac, go to fix 7.
• If dictation starts and then stops, or the keyboard drops mid-sentence, go to fix 9.

The 10 fixes, in order

1. Tap inside the document's text

This is the cause behind most "there is no mic in Scrivener" reports. Opening a document from the binder shows you its text, but showing you the text is not the same as giving you a cursor. Until you tap into the text, the keyboard stays down, and the mic is on the keyboard.

Tap directly in the text at the spot where you want your words to go. A cursor appears, the keyboard slides up, and now there is a mic. To add to the end of a scene, tap in the empty space below the last line. For a brand new scene, add a new text document in the binder, give it a title, then tap into its empty page.

Two details matter before you speak. If a word or a passage is highlighted when you start, the first thing you say replaces it, exactly as typing would, so tap once more so that only the cursor remains. And in a long chapter, glance at where the cursor actually landed. A tap to wake the screen can drop it in the middle of a paragraph you finished last week, and your new scene will start there.

2. Open the document, not the folder

The binder is a tree of folders and documents, and on iPhone you move through it one level at a time. Tapping a folder takes you into it and shows you the items inside. That is a list of documents, not a page of text, so there is nothing to type into, no keyboard and no mic. Keep tapping until you reach the document you want, then tap into its text.

Many writers set up one folder per chapter with a document for each scene inside it. In that layout, the scene documents are where the writing goes. If your view shows the items as index cards, remember that a card shows a document's synopsis, a short summary, and not its text. Open the document itself to dictate into the draft.

3. Check that it is a text document, not a research file

Scrivener projects usually have a Research folder full of material you imported: PDFs, images, web pages and other files. Scrivener shows them so you can read them while you write, but they are not text documents. You cannot type into a PDF or a photo, so there is no cursor, no keyboard and no mic.

If you want to talk through your thoughts about a research file, create a new text document next to it and dictate there. The same applies to anything else Scrivener displays but cannot edit. If tapping into the page never brings up a keyboard, check what kind of item you are looking at before you check anything else.

4. Get a keyboard with a mic on screen

Once a cursor is in the text, the keyboard is up and the mic should be on it. If it is not, check which keyboard you are looking at. If you have more than one installed, the globe key cycles between them, and a long press on it shows the list. Apple's keyboard shows its mic when dictation is enabled. Many third-party keyboards have no mic of their own, and one that does usually needs Full Access switched on before its mic responds. Our guide to enabling Full Access for an iPhone keyboard explains what that permission does.

Also check that you are not looking at Scrivener's row of extra keys and missing the keyboard below it. On iPhones without a Home button, Apple's mic sits in the bottom corner of the screen, below the keys, and it is easy to overlook. On an iPad with a hardware keyboard attached, the on-screen keyboard can stay hidden, and its mic is hidden with it. Detach the keyboard, or bring the on-screen keyboard back, to reach the mic.

Password boxes follow a rule of their own. Whenever a password field has the cursor, for example while you link Scrivener to your Dropbox account, iOS replaces any third-party keyboard with Apple's own, and dictation is not offered there. That is a security feature of the phone. Type the password, and once you are back in your document, switch to the keyboard you dictate with. If Apple's keyboard is showing and still has no mic, dictation is switched off or restricted on your iPhone. Fix 10 covers the settings, and our guide to a microphone button missing from the iPhone keyboard goes through every cause in detail.

5. Watch titles, synopses, notes and search

Your draft is not the only text field in a Scrivener project. Every document has a title. The Inspector holds a synopsis and notes for each document. The binder has a search field. Whichever one has the cursor gets your words.

• Titles. If you just created a document, or tapped its name to rename it, the cursor may still be in the title. A dictated paragraph then becomes the document's name. Undo, give the document a short title, and tap into the text.
• Synopsis and notes. With the Inspector open, a tap in the synopsis or the notes puts the cursor there. Your words are saved, but as notes about the scene and not as part of it, so they will not show up in the draft. Close the Inspector and tap into the editor.
• Search. If you searched the project for a word and then tapped the mic without opening a document, your words became the search term, and the binder filtered down to match. Nothing has been deleted. Clear or cancel the search, open the document and tap into its text.

If a paragraph you know you dictated has gone missing, check these three places first: the document's title, its synopsis and notes in the Inspector, and the search field.

6. Make sure you are in the document you think you are

Scrivener projects tend to grow lots of similar documents: "Scene 3", "Scene 3 alt", a dozen untitled pages from a brainstorm. It is easy to tap the wrong one in a long binder on a small screen. Glance at the document's title before you speak, especially after moving around the project.

Check the Trash, too. A document that was moved to the project's Trash is out of the way on purpose, and it will not be part of your manuscript. If the scene you want to add to has ended up there, move it back into the draft first and then dictate.

If you dictated into the wrong document, select the text, cut it, open the right document and paste it in. That is quicker than dictating it again, and it keeps the exact wording you were happy with.

7. Sync before you start and after you finish

If your words are in Scrivener on your iPhone but not on your Mac, that is a sync problem, not a dictation problem. Scrivener on iPhone and iPad syncs with Scrivener on the Mac through Dropbox, and the words you dictate only travel when a sync runs. A project that lives only on your phone, and was never set up to sync, will not appear on your Mac at all.

The safe routine is one place at a time. Close the project on your Mac and let Dropbox finish uploading. Sync on your iPhone before you start writing. Dictate. Sync again when you finish, and stay in Scrivener until the sync completes, because switching away part way through can interrupt it. Then wait for Dropbox on the Mac to catch up before you open the project there.

If you changed the same document on both devices without syncing in between, do not delete anything in a hurry. Look through the binder for a second copy of the scene before you decide what to keep, and merge the two versions by hand if both have work you want. Low Power Mode and Low Data Mode can also hold back network activity, so a sync on a phone that is saving battery may take longer than you expect.

8. Free up the microphone

Dictation needs the microphone to itself. A phone or FaceTime call, a video meeting 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 Scrivener. Our guide to iPhone dictation not working with AirPods walks through the headphone side.

9. Keep the keyboard up while you talk

Dictation runs on the keyboard, so anything that puts the keyboard away ends it, often mid-sentence. In a writing app the usual culprit is your own thumb. Scrolling back through the chapter to reread a line can dismiss the keyboard. Opening the binder or the Inspector to check a character's name takes the cursor out of the text. Switching to another app to look something up ends the session too. Hold the phone still while you speak, and scroll or tap only once the words have arrived.

The other cause is a pause. Apple's dictation stops when you go quiet for a moment, and composing a scene involves exactly that kind of pause while you find the next line. What you said before the pause stays in the document, and anything after it is lost. Our guide to why iPhone dictation keeps stopping explains what you can do about it.

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, update Scrivener from the App Store, and if nothing else has worked, restart your iPhone. A restart clears stuck audio sessions and keyboard processes in one step.

Scrivener quirks that look like broken dictation

• Paragraphs run together. Dictation does not know where your paragraphs end. Say "new paragraph" when you want one, or dictate in a single block and add the breaks afterwards.
• Dialogue has no quotation marks. Speech is written down as plain sentences unless you ask for the marks. Saying "open quote" and "close quote" works in many cases, and our guide to dictating quotes and special characters covers the rest.
• Dictated text looks different from the rest. New text takes on the formatting at the cursor. If the cursor sits next to italic or a different font, your words pick it up. Move the cursor into plain text first, or fix the formatting afterwards.
• Every title ends with a full stop. iPhone dictation adds punctuation automatically, which suits sentences better than titles. You can turn off Auto-Punctuation under Settings, General, then Keyboard, or delete the full stop by hand.
• Words change after they land. Autocorrect and the text replacements in your keyboard settings can rewrite what dictation typed. If the same word keeps changing, check Settings, General, Keyboard, then Text Replacement.
• Character names come out wrong. Invented names and places are the words dictation mishears most, because they are not in any dictionary. Our guide to why iPhone dictation gets words wrong covers the causes and the workarounds.
• The keyboard is covering the words. With the keyboard and Scrivener's extra key row both up, the line you are dictating can sit just out of sight. Scroll a little before you start, not while you speak.

Quick triage

• Document is open but there is no keyboard: no cursor in the text. Tap into it. Fix 1.
• A list of documents and no page: you are in a folder. Open a document. Fix 2.
• A PDF or image and no cursor: a research file. Create a text document. Fix 3.
• Keyboard is up, but no mic: the wrong keyboard, Full Access, a password box, or dictation is off. Fix 4.
• Words became a title, a synopsis or a search: fix 5.
• Words landed in the wrong scene: fix 6.
• Scene missing on your Mac: sync through Dropbox, one place at a time. Fix 7.
• Mic starts, then stops at once: microphone busy, or Bluetooth. Fix 8.
• Dictation ends mid-sentence: the keyboard went away, or you paused. Fix 9.
• Fails in Notes too: iPhone dictation settings. Fix 10.

Scrivener on iPhone versus Scrivener on a Mac

On a Mac you start dictation with a keyboard shortcut and not a mic key, so there is no on-screen keyboard to go missing. There, the usual traps are views that have no text, such as the Corkboard and the Outliner, and clicks that leave the binder in charge of the keyboard. On iPhone everything runs through the on-screen keyboard, so the first question is always whether a keyboard appeared at all. The rest carries across: research files, titles, synopses and the one-place-at-a-time sync rule behave the same way on both. Our guide to Mac dictation not working in Scrivener covers the desktop side.

If you also draft in other writing apps on your phone, the same kinds of problems turn up there with their own twists. We have guides to iPhone dictation not working in Pages, to Microsoft Word, and to Google Docs.

A dictation workflow that suits Scrivener on a phone

• Sync, write, sync. Make the sync the first and last thing you do in every phone session. It takes a few seconds and it is the difference between a scene on your Mac and a scene stranded on your phone.
• One scene per document. Short documents are easier to dictate in one go, easier to find in a long binder, and less likely to be interrupted by a pause.
• Title first, then text. Give a new document a short title, then tap into the page. Your words stay out of the binder.
• Draft now, polish at the desk. Talk the scene through on the phone without stopping to fix every word. Paragraph breaks, italics and dialogue punctuation are quicker to add on the Mac.
• Read it back once. A quick pass catches the misheard character name before it spreads through three chapters.

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 keyboard the gap is wider still. For a novelist that difference adds up quickly, and our guide to dictating a novel's first draft by voice covers the habits that make it stick. For the basics of dictating at your desk, see how to dictate in Scrivener.

A keyboard with a mic for every scene

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 on a small screen means selecting and retyping by hand.

Voice Keyboard Pro is a custom iPhone keyboard with a built-in mic button for dictation in any iOS app, Scrivener included. Tap into a document, tap the mic and speak, and your words are added at the cursor. Because it is a keyboard and not a feature of one app, it works the same way in Scrivener, Notes, Mail and everywhere else you type. Like any keyboard, it only appears once there is a cursor in some text, so fixes 1, 2 and 3 still apply.

A few features help with long-form writing in particular:

• Voice Edit lets you speak a change to fix text, so you can correct a misheard name or rework a line 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 if you draft in a language other than the one you think in.
• Swipe typing is there for the moments when speaking out loud is not practical, such as a quiet carriage or a library.

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 the words are an unpublished manuscript. 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 product lives in your menu bar: hold a hotkey, speak, release, and the text appears at your cursor in Scrivener or anywhere else.

Frequently asked questions

Does Scrivener have voice typing on iPhone?

Not as a feature of its own. You dictate with the mic on your iPhone keyboard, which types into whichever document has the cursor, exactly as if you had typed the words.

Why is there no keyboard when I open a document in Scrivener?

Opening a document shows it, but the keyboard only appears when there is a cursor in the text. Tap directly in the page where you want your words to go. If you are looking at a list of documents or a research file, there is no text to tap into.

Why did my dictated paragraph become the document's title?

The cursor was still in the title, usually just after you created or renamed the document. Undo, type a short title, then tap into the page and dictate again.

Can I dictate into the synopsis or notes?

Yes. They are text fields, so dictation works there. Just remember that words in the synopsis or notes are not part of the draft and will not appear in your manuscript.

Why isn't the scene I dictated on my iPhone showing up on my Mac?

The words only travel when a sync runs. Sync on your iPhone when you finish, let Dropbox catch up on the Mac, and only then open the project there. Keep the project open in one place at a time.

Can I dictate into a PDF in my Research folder?

No. Research files are shown for reference and cannot be typed into. Create a text document next to the file and dictate your notes there.

Does this work the same way on iPad?

Yes. Scrivener on iPad works the same way, so every fix here applies. With a hardware keyboard attached the on-screen keyboard may stay hidden, but the mic still lives on the keyboard.

What to do next

Run the 30-second Notes test, then work through the fixes that match what you saw. For most writers it is one of the first five: no cursor in the text, a folder or research file instead of a document, the wrong keyboard, or a title, synopsis or search field holding on to the words. If a scene is missing on your Mac, it is sync, not dictation. 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 scene.