Dictate in any app · Notes

Voice typing in Roam Research

Roam is built on the idea that thinking gets captured as it happens. Hold a key and talk: Typally transcribes and types it into Roam Research without you touching the keyboard.

This is a vendor guide from the makers of Typally. Anything we say about Roam Research is worth verifying — third-party features change without notice.
Dictate into Roam Research 100 free minutes every month. No card, and nothing to cancel if you stop.
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In short

  • Roam Research's own dictation: None. Blocks are typed.
  • What Typally does instead: covers Roam Research and every other program on the machine with one hotkey.
  • Best used for: daily notes

Does Roam Research have built-in dictation?

None. Blocks are typed.

Why dictate in Roam Research at all?

Networked note-taking only works if enough notes exist to network. Typing is the tax on every idea entering the system, and a graph with forty notes in it is just an awkward outliner.

In practice people use it for: Daily notes, block-level thoughts, literature notes, and the long-form thinking that accumulates into an argument.

How to dictate in Roam Research

There is no Roam Research extension or add-in involved — Typally behaves like a very fast keyboard:

1

Install Typally

Windows or macOS, then sign in. No card for the free tier.

2

Focus the Roam Research field you want the words in

Make sure Roam Research has the cursor in the intended field; that is the only thing that decides where words appear.

3

Hold the hotkey and talk

Say the whole thought, then let go. No time limit.

4

Read it before you move on

Roam's blocks respond to brackets and slashes. A dictated bracket can open a page reference or an autocomplete menu mid-sentence.

What Typally adds in Roam Research

Typally types into the daily note, so a thought can be captured before you decide where it belongs — which is the decision that stops most captures happening. Dictate prose and add the double-bracket links by keyboard, since a spoken bracket opens Roam's autocomplete mid-sentence.

What this looks like in practice

Someone whose graph had stalled at fifty notes starts speaking into the daily note whenever a thought arrives. Two months later the graph has enough in it that the connections become the reason to open it.

One habit that makes it work better

Dictate into the daily note and link it later. Deciding where an idea belongs at the moment of capture is what stops the capture happening.

What to watch out for in Roam Research

Roam's blocks respond to brackets and slashes. A dictated bracket can open a page reference or an autocomplete menu mid-sentence.

Frequently asked questions

Does Roam Research have voice input?

No. All blocks are typed.

Can I dictate double-bracket page links?

Spoken brackets rarely land right. Dictate the prose and add links with the keyboard.

Does it work in Roam's desktop app?

Yes — the same as the browser version.

Try it in Roam Research

The free plan gives you 100 minutes a month without a card — enough to find out whether talking beats typing for you.

Try Typally free

Also dictate in: Logseq · Obsidian · Mem · see all apps