A map of the Vowen window, the Settings modal, and the menu bar menu.
Vowen has two layers of configuration. The main window has a sidebar of full pages for the big features. The Settings modal opens on top of it and holds the ten sections that configure the app itself.
Indicator style and position, idle pill, saved audio, system audio, real-time preview
Shortcuts
Every keyboard shortcut Vowen listens for
Sync
Cloud sync setup
Developer
The vowen CLI, clipboard history, network preferences
Experimental
Features still in active development
Permissions
System permission status and shortcuts to grant them
The app version is printed at the bottom of the modal sidebar.
Several things that used to live in this modal are now full sidebar pages: Speech models, Configure your AI, Tones, Dictionary, Workflows, and notes integrations. There is no Privacy section and no Memory section. Memory is now part of Configure your AI, and data export lives at the bottom of Settings > Account.
The Settings modal, opened on Account. The ten sections run down the left, with the search field above them and the app version at the bottom.
Software Updates: description plus a Check for Updates button
Open at Login: launch Vowen when you log in
Hide Dock Icon (macOS only): run as a pure menu bar app
Start Minimized to Tray (Windows only)
Auto-paste transcription: paste into the focused field automatically
Text Insertion Method: Paste method or Direct insertion. Greyed out when auto-paste is off
Auto Enter: press Enter after pasting. Greyed out when auto-paste is off
Restore clipboard after paste
Sound Effects: audio feedback when recording starts and stops
Save transcriptions to history: word count and activity are tracked either way
Remove filler words
Auto-add corrections to Dictionary (Pro, Beta): needs at least one AI provider connected
Resource efficient mode: only shown for local Whisper models, and for Parakeet on Windows
Theme is not here. It is a sun/moon button in the main window toolbar, next to the account icon.
Settings > General.
Audio
Microphone selection. Vowen keeps a ranked list rather than a single pinned device, and uses the highest-ranked microphone that is currently connected. Drag to reorder.See Microphones.
Settings > Audio. Change opens the microphone picker and ranking list.
Language
Interface language: Vowen’s own UI. 18 languages ship with the app
Dictation language: the language you speak. The available list depends on the model you have selected
Summary language: the language meeting note summaries are written in
English spelling: British or American conventions
Auto-translate to English (Pro): only shown when the model is not English-only
Every shortcut Vowen listens for, grouped by what it does: dictation, hands-free, command mode, tones, cancel recording, and the meeting panel. Alternative and multiple shortcuts are Pro.See Shortcuts.
Settings > Shortcuts. The section id is hotkeys; the label is Shortcuts.
Sync
Cloud sync setup. This is the one section where the entire page is behind a Pro overlay rather than individual rows.See Cloud sync.
Three settings, all aimed at people who want to script Vowen or who are debugging a connection problem.
Command Line Tool
Installs a vowen command so you can drive Vowen from a terminal or from an agent. The row shows the installed version and path once it is in place, and offers Install, Update, and Uninstall buttons. Vowen checks for a newer CLI release when the section opens and turns the Update button primary when one is available.See the CLI documentation for what the command can do.
Allow Dictations in Clipboard History
Off by default. Vowen’s paste method puts your transcription on the clipboard for a moment, and clipboard managers like Maccy, Raycast, and Ditto will record it if you let them. Leaving this off keeps dictations from piling up in your clipboard history. Turn it on if you actually want them there.
Prefer IPv4 Connections
On by default. Vowen resolves cloud services over IPv4 before trying IPv6, which fixes hangs and connection errors on networks with broken IPv6. Turn it off only on an IPv6-only network. The change applies immediately, without a restart.Try this first if cloud transcription or an AI provider fails to connect on a network where everything else works.
Features in active development. The section header tells you to enable these only if you are hitting a specific problem.
Enable Connectors
Off by default. Turning it on adds Connectors to the sidebar, which lets Live Ask, Chat with Notes, and Command Mode read from and act on external apps. Connections may break or behave unexpectedly. Requires Pro to actually use.
Enable Cursor/Windsurf file tagging
Pro. When you dictate in Cursor or Windsurf, Vowen detects file references in what you said and inserts them as @ mentions using the IDE’s own file picker.
Enhanced silence detection
Off by default. Raises the silence threshold for cloud models so a fan, an air conditioner, or keyboard noise is less likely to be sent as speech. Turn this on if you get empty or hallucinated transcriptions while you are not talking.Enabling it reveals a Sensitivity slider from 1x to 5x, defaulting to 2x. Higher is stricter: at 3x, audio has to be three times louder than the measured baseline before Vowen treats it as speech. Raise it if phantom transcriptions persist; lower it if real speech starts getting skipped.
A live status list of the system permissions Vowen uses, with a button beside each one that opens the right pane of System Settings. This is the fastest way to check whether a permission actually stuck after you granted it.See Permissions for what each one is for.
The Settings modal has a search field above its section list. Rather than a flat list of results, it renders the real settings sections filtered down to the rows that match, so every control looks and behaves exactly as it does when you browse to it. You can toggle a setting straight from the search results.
Searching "clipboard" pulls matching rows out of General and Developer at once — and the toggles are live, so you can flip one without leaving the results.
How matching works:
Matching is English-only. Vowen searches the row text and a set of English synonyms, regardless of your interface language. Searching “microphone” works even if your UI is in German; searching “Mikrofon” does not.
All of your typed words have to match somewhere in the row.
Matching a section’s own name (“recording”, “sync”) shows every row in that section.
Permissions is deliberately excluded from search. Those are system grants, not settings, so they never appear in results. Click the Permissions item in the sidebar to reach them.
Clicking a section header in the results jumps to that section and clears the query.
Because "recording" is a section name, the whole Recording section comes back. Click the RECORDING header above the results to jump there.
Press Cmd+K (macOS) or Ctrl+K (Windows) anywhere in the main window to open the command palette. It searches sidebar pages by name or by what you call them (“voice log” finds Home, “api key” finds Configure your AI), and it searches your content as well.See Command palette.
Vowen has Light and Dark themes. The toggle is the sun/moon button in the main window toolbar, in the top right beside the AI provider chip and the account icon. There is no theme row in Settings.
This is the whole theme control: the sun/moon button in the main window toolbar.
Vowen can deliver your transcription using either the paste method (simulates Cmd+V / Ctrl+V) or direct insertion (types each character as if you were typing it). Choose in Settings > General > Text Insertion Method.The paste method is fast but touches your clipboard; enable Restore clipboard after paste in the same section to put your previous clipboard contents back. Direct insertion is the right choice in apps that block standard paste.See Text Insertion Methods for the full explanation.
Turn on Show idle pill in Settings > Recording to keep a small minimized bar pinned to the edge of your screen when you are not recording. Hover it to expand and start a recording without reaching for a shortcut. It is off by default.
If you prefer Vowen to be a pure background app without a Dock icon, enable Settings > General > Hide Dock Icon. The app stays accessible from the menu bar.
