Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Telegram has no button of its own to dictate a message, but it does have an official transcription of received voice and video messages into text: free users get 2 transcriptions per week, Premium has no limit, and it is turned on in Settings → Chats → Voice message transcription. To dictate your own message, system dictation of the OS or a separate program like Potok (potok.now) with a response time of about 0.4 seconds will do.
Do people confuse voice text input and voice message transcription in Telegram? They are different things: the official feature of the messenger turns voice and video messages you have received into text, not what you say when composing your own message.
Does Telegram have its own dictation
Telegram has no button that would dictate a new message by voice instead of typing. It does have an official transcription feature: it turns voice and video messages you have received into text, and it is turned on in Settings → Chats → Voice message transcription. Free users get 2 transcriptions per week, and Premium subscribers have no limit. This is recognition of someone else's speech for reading, not dictating your own message. The message field itself is an ordinary text field: it accepts inserted text regardless of where it came from. Telegram works on Windows, macOS and on the web. The official site is telegram.org.
| What is available | |
|---|---|
| Text insertion | yes |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Web |
| Potok | hold the key, speak, release: the text lands in the field under the cursor |
How to dictate a message in Telegram through Potok
To dictate your own message, and not transcribe someone else's, system dictation of the OS or a separate program will do:
- On Windows 11 you can call Win+H right in the message field. It recognizes speech in the Microsoft cloud, works only with an internet connection, and Russian exists only in Windows 11.
- On macOS there is built-in dictation with Russian support, and it inserts text where the cursor is.
- To dictate through a separate program like Potok, hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), say the message and release the key. The text appears in the Telegram field with a response time of about 0.4 seconds, and punctuation is placed automatically.
There is a separate breakdown on punctuation in this kind of dictation: how to dictate punctuation by voice in Telegram.
Where voice input in Telegram will not work
Potok is a cloud service: speech recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without an internet connection. It has no voice commands for editing text, no mobile apps either, and the free plan is limited to 2500 words per week on one device. For someone who chats a lot in Telegram every day, this limit may not be enough. There is a similar breakdown for voice input in WhatsApp.
Frequently asked questions
Transcription turns voice and video messages you have received into text. It is reading someone else's speech, not dictating your own message. It is turned on in Settings → Chats → Voice message transcription.
2 transcriptions per week; Premium subscribers have no limit on the number of transcriptions.
Built-in system tools (Win+H in Windows, Dictation in macOS, Voice Typing in Google Docs, Gboard on Android), voice browser extensions, and specialized desktop and web services (Potok and similar) that work on top of any app via a hotkey.
Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice versus about 200 when typing, roughly 4 times faster. This is the product's own estimate, not an independent measurement.
By a model estimate, the average dictation speed with Potok is about 900 characters per minute versus about 200 characters per minute with ordinary typing, so speech is noticeably faster than the keyboard.
Voice input converts speech to text on the fly: the user speaks, and the program transcribes the sound with speech recognition technology (ASR) and inserts the resulting text into the active field, such as email, a messenger or a document. In Potok it works through a hotkey: hold it, speak, release, and the text is inserted.
How to start
Potok is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. For two weeks everything is open for free, after that 2500 words per week without paying. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokOne subscription, two tools: dictation in any program on your computer and @potok_now_bot in Telegram, which transcribes voice messages, audio and video.
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows voice typing (Win+H) | Windows 10 and 11 | Windows 11 only | Microsoft cloud, does not work offline |
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |
Primary sources: telegram.org · core.telegram.org