Hotkey not working
You hold the Voibe hotkey, speak, release — and nothing happens. On a Mac this is, in the vast majority of cases, Accessibility permission silently dropping after a macOS update or a permission reset. On Windows it is almost always another app that has claimed the same key.
Work through the fixes below in order. Most users are sorted by step 1.
On Windows? Fixes 01 to 03 below are macOS-specific — there is no accessibility permission on Windows and no globe key to reclaim. Jump straight to the Windows fixes.
30-second checks first
- Voibe wave icon visible in your menu bar (or Windows system tray)?
- Cursor is blinking inside a text field, not on a button or empty desktop?
- You're holding the right key — on a Mac it defaults to Fn?
Toggle Accessibility permission off and back on (Mac)
This is the fix nine times out of ten. macOS occasionally drops Accessibility grants without removing the app from the list, leaving the toggle on but the actual permission dead.
- 1. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility.
- 2. Find Voibe in the list and toggle it off.
- 3. Toggle it back on. macOS may prompt for your password.
- 4. Quit Voibe (menu bar icon › Quit) and relaunch from Applications.
- 5. Test the hotkey in any text field.
See Permissions for the full explanation of what Accessibility access lets Voibe do.
Confirm Voibe is actually running
The hotkey only works while Voibe is running. Look for the wave-shaped V icon at the top right of your screen.
- If the icon's missing, launch Voibe from Applications or Spotlight.
- If your menu bar is crowded, the icon may be hidden behind the notch on newer MacBooks. Hold ⌘ and drag menu bar icons to reorder.
- To avoid this in future, enable Launch at login in Voibe's settings.
See Menu Bar App for everything you can do from the icon.
Stop macOS from claiming the Fn key
By default, macOS maps the Fn key (the 🌐 globe key on newer Macs) to Show Emoji & Symbols. So when you tap it expecting Voibe, the emoji picker pops up instead. Most users haven't changed this on purpose — it's just the macOS default.
Option A — free up the Fn key (recommended)
- 1. Open System Settings › Keyboard.
- 2. Find Press 🌐 key to (labelled Press Fn key to on Macs without a globe icon).
- 3. Change it from Show Emoji & Symbols to Do Nothing.
- 4. Test the Voibe hotkey in any text field.
Option B — pick a different Voibe hotkey
If you'd rather keep emoji on Fn, open Voibe and change the hotkey to Right Option or Right Control — both are reliable and don't collide with macOS defaults.
Rule out a hotkey conflict
Other apps can claim the same key. The usual suspects: Karabiner-Elements, BetterTouchTool, Raycast, Alfred, Loop, and macOS dictation itself bound to the same hotkey.
- 1. Open Voibe's settings (menu bar › Show Dashboard).
- 2. Change the hotkey to something else — Right Option or ⌃⇧Space are reliable.
- 3. Test in a text field.
- 4. If it works on the new key, the original key was claimed by another app. Switch back if you want, after disabling the conflict.
Check System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Dictation if you suspect Apple's built-in dictation is intercepting the key.
Make sure your cursor is in a text field
Voibe types into the focused text input. If your cursor isn't blinking inside a text field — say, you clicked on a button, an empty area of the desktop, or a read-only surface — the hotkey will appear to do nothing because there's nowhere to deliver the text.
Click once into a text field (Notes, a chat input, a search bar) before holding the hotkey. If you hear the audio cue but text doesn't appear, use the Paste Last Transcript item from the Voibe menu bar or system tray icon (on a Mac, ⌃⌥V) to recover what you said.
If you're on Windows
Windows has no accessibility permission to grant, so the macOS fixes above don't apply. These four cover nearly every Windows case.
1. Another app has claimed the key
This is the overwhelmingly common cause. A global hotkey can only belong to one app at a time, and whichever registered it first wins. Frequent culprits:
- Xbox Game Bar (Win + G and its other bindings)
- Discord or Teams push-to-talk
- Nvidia or AMD overlay software
- Keyboard utilities from Logitech, Razer, Corsair, or your laptop vendor
The fastest test is to pick a different Voibe hotkey and see if it fires. If it does, you've found a conflict — either keep the new key or turn off the conflicting shortcut in the other app.
2. It works everywhere except one app
Windows blocks apps from sending input to windows running at a higher privilege level. If dictation works in Chrome but not in a tool you started with Run as administrator, that's why. Right-click Voibe and run it as administrator too, and the two will match.
3. Voibe isn't running
Look for the Voibe icon in the system tray at the right-hand end of the taskbar. If it isn't there, click the chevron (^) to check the overflow area — Windows hides tray icons by default. If it isn't there either, launch Voibe from the Start menu.
4. The key never reaches Voibe
Some laptops need Fn held for the top-row keys to send their standard codes, and gaming keyboards can have a "game mode" that suppresses modifiers. If a specific key never registers anywhere, pick a plain one — right Alt or right Ctrl are reliable choices. More on Windows hotkeys.
Still not working?
- If you hear no audio cue when holding the hotkey, the issue is microphone, not hotkey — see No Audio Detected.
- Restart your computer. Sounds trite; on a Mac it sometimes resolves stuck input monitoring permissions, and on Windows it clears a hotkey another app never released.
- Email hi@getvoibe.com with your macOS or Windows version and which hotkey you're using.