How to send email by voice in Microsoft Outlook

If you find it difficult to use your hands or just want to give your fingers a rest, dictation tools are a lifesaver. Microsoft has added a new dictation tool to Microsoft Outlook that allows you to compose emails using your microphone. But is this new feature worth your time and effort?

What is the Dictate tool on Microsoft Outlook?

Microsoft Outlook's Dictate tool allows you to use your microphone to write emails. Once turned on, everything you say into the microphone will be recorded in the email body. It's a good choice for people who have difficulty typing or who prefer speaking their thoughts rather than typing them.

The Outlook Dictate tool is a little different from using a Windows dictation application to write emails.

First, you can use the Outlook Dictate tool to perform email-related actions, such as sending an email, adding more people to a recipient list, or writing a subject line.

Second, the feature announcement on Microsoft 365 Insider says Outlook's dictation feature uses "AI-powered voice commands", suggesting that there's a bit more processing going on than before. with other speech-to-text applications.

Before you begin, you should double check that Outlook supports your language. You can see the full list of languages ​​on Microsoft Support.

How to access voice dictation on Microsoft Outlook

To get started with Dictate, open a new draft or reply in Microsoft 365 Outlook or Outlook for the web. Click the Message button along the top bar.

Now, click the Dictate button on the bar that appears. It looks like a small blue microphone and appears on the right side of the bar. You can also click the small arrow to the right of the microphone to set the input language

Outlook will give you an audio signal when Dictate starts listening to your microphone. Now, whatever you say will be written in the email. If you want to stop dictating, click the microphone button again.

How to use the voice email feature on Microsoft Outlook

Once you turn on your microphone, you have control over your email. If you're using the Microsoft 365 version of Outlook, you can say "Add [name] to the email" to add someone to the recipient list or "Add [name] to the CC/BCC" to add people to the corresponding CC or BCC fields. After setting up the recipient, you can say "Set the subject field to [subject]" to set the appropriate subject for your email.

On other Outlook versions, the above commands may not work. However, you can still use the Dictate tool to write your emails. As long as the microphone icon shows you're active, everything you say will be recorded in the email body.

You need to give dictation a little guidance. If you want to end a sentence with an exclamation mark, you need to state "exclamation mark" at the end of the sentence. For example, say "I found the perfect gift for you exclamation mark" will add an exclamation point to the end of your sentence. You can also add currency and math symbols in the same way.

Once done, if you're using Microsoft 365, you can send emails using your voice. Just say "send email", then say "yes" when Outlook asks if you're sure.

Should you use the dictation feature on Microsoft Outlook?

Voice dictation tools are great on paper, but if they don't do what you want, they can quickly frustrate you. So let's try this feature to see how well it works.

This feature is a bit limited when used outside of Outlook in Microsoft 365. There are no exciting features added to it, and voice dictation accuracy isn't very good. It also occasionally ignores spoken or misspelled words or turns off the microphone while speaking.

However, now that all the useful features are ready to use, you can set up recipients, subject lines and start writing emails with voice commands and Outlook hasn't misunderstood. This is definitely one of the top features in Microsoft 365 apps.

When you use Dictate on Microsoft 365, a small bar appears when you turn on your microphone. You should click the gear on this bar and select Enable auto-punctuation, as it does a great job of guessing where to add a comma after processing what is said.

Overall, Outlook's Dictate feature is worth using on Microsoft 365. If you plan to write emails using this tool, you should go to your Microsoft account, download Microsoft 365, and then use Outlook through the Microsoft 365. However, other versions of Outlook do quite well with their own Dictate tools.

Lesley Montoya

Update 15 December 2023