Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
In most note-taking apps, punctuation during dictation has to be either spoken as a separate command or placed by hand. Russian commands are documented for built-in Windows and macOS dictation: 8 marks in all. Apple has automatic punctuation without commands turned off for Russian. The fastest way is to dictate with the Potok app (potok.now): it places punctuation and capital letters at once, without a single command.
Are you dictating a note in Notion, Evernote, OneNote or another app and do not know how to place a comma or period by voice? The note-taking app itself has almost nothing to do with it here: punctuation depends on the operating system and on what you dictate with.
The fastest way: dictate through Potok
The fastest way is to dictate the text of a note with the Potok app: hold the hotkey, say a phrase in ordinary speech, without the words "zapyataya" (comma) or "tochka" (period), and release, and the punctuation and capital letters will be placed by themselves. This works the same in any note-taking app where you can paste text: in Obsidian, Bear, Simplenote and dozens of others, whether or not they have their own dictation. Craft needs separate attention: on Mac the Ctrl+Space shortcut there is already taken by its own command that opens Quick Entry, so in that app you should change Potok's key in the settings in advance. Notion, for comparison, has no official list of hotkeys with Ctrl+Space or Cmd+Space at all: the nearest taken shortcut, Ctrl+Cmd+Space on Mac, opens the system emoji picker and not anything in Notion itself.
The long way: built-in dictation in individual apps
Some note-taking apps have their own dictation, but with caveats. In Evernote you need to press the microphone icon on the editing panel: speech turns into text in real time on desktop, on the web and on mobile, but the list of supported languages and whether Russian is among them are not stated in the help. The separate AI Transcribe feature there transcribes an already finished recording and does not work live. In Microsoft OneNote, dictation is turned on through Home, Dictate, and it requires signing in to Microsoft 365: without a Microsoft 365 subscription, in a separately bought version of Office, it does not exist. Of the full list of languages, Russian is only among the "preview" languages with lower accuracy, not in the main list of 15 languages of full quality. In Google Keep, voice input works only on Android and iPhone or iPad through the Recording button, then Speak: the help has no separate feature for the web version on a computer. In Joplin, built-in dictation exists only in the mobile app on Android and works offline through the Whisper.cpp engine; on desktop and in iOS it officially does not exist. And in the Notes app on Mac and iOS there is no built-in text dictation at all, according to Apple's official help.
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| MacWhisper | macOS | A free version is available ("Free forever", limited functionality), Pro is paid | €64/one-time (Pro, one-time purchase through Gumroad, lifetime updates); $29.99/yr (Pro, App Store version ("Whisper Transcription"), subscription); $99.99/one-time (Pro, App Store version, one-time purchase) | not disclosed | on the device (offline) by default, with local Whisper models; there are optional cloud transcription providers, but not as the main mode |
| Glas (LidFly) | Windows, macOS | 0 ₽ — 2000 words per week free for life, no card and no email sign-up; the first 2 weeks have no word limit | — | rubles directly: payment via SBP; invoices for companies and sole proprietors | cloud (Russia) — the site says “Russian servers, works without a VPN” |
| Voisty | Windows, macOS | 5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality) | $6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime) | Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed) | device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet) |
| Aqua Voice | macOS, Windows, iOS | Starter: 1000 free words (Avalon model), no card required | $8/mo (Pro, billed yearly); $10/mo (Pro, monthly); $24/mo (Max, billed yearly) | unknown: the website shows payment in USD, and there is a separate purchase through the iOS App Store; acceptance of Russian cards is not confirmed (not confirmed) | cloud (own Avalon model; the country of the data center is not publicly disclosed) (not confirmed) |
| Spokenly | macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS | local models (Whisper/Parakeet) are free forever with no word limit; connecting your own API keys (BYOK) is also free | $9.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $99.99/yr (Pro, yearly (≈$8.33/mo)) | not disclosed | hybrid: locally on the device (Whisper/Parakeet, free) or in the cloud (GPT-4o Transcribe, Deepgram Nova 3, Soniox and others, via BYOK or Pro) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
| Dragon NaturallySpeaking | Windows | not disclosed | $699.99/one-time (Dragon Professional Individual v16, perpetual licence) | not disclosed | device (offline) — local acoustic engine (~8 GB neural network) after installation; internet is only needed to activate the licence |
| Diktuy | Windows, macOS | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)) | rubles directly (not confirmed) | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| SpeechPad (voice notepad) | Web (Chrome), Chrome extension, Android, iOS, integration modules for Windows/Mac/Linux | basic voice input in the notepad is free; transcription of audio/video up to 15 minutes is free | 100 ₽/mo (extended mode (integration of voice input with Windows/Linux OS, removal of the 15-minute transcription limit): the amount appears in user comments/reviews, and no exact official price list was found on the site) | yes: Robokassa and bank cards are accepted (for payment from abroad, an alternative site voicenotebook.com with PayPal is mentioned) | not disclosed |
| Lispr | Windows, macOS | 60 minutes of dictation per week for free; the key features (push-to-talk, translation, dictionary, local history) always stay free, without an account | $7.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $79/yr (Pro, yearly (from $44.90 with regional discounts)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (USA; recognition is done by Groq, Inc.) |
| Task | Characters | Typing (200 chars/min) | Voice (900 chars/min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| chat reply | 300 | 2 min | 0.5 min |
| 1500 | 8 min | 1.7 min | |
| post or meeting minutes | 4000 | 20 min | 4.4 min |
| article | 10000 | 50 min | 11.1 min |
What none of these ways solves
Potok is a cloud service: recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet. It has no voice commands other than dictating the text itself. RemNote also got voice dictation in version 1.18, but it is confirmed only by an entry in the official changelog: there is no separate article with languages and platforms in the help. For free, Potok gives 2500 words per week on one device: for long notes every day the limit may not be enough.
Frequently asked questions
Dictation is confirmed for Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Google Keep, Joplin (Android only) and RemNote, each with its own limits by platform or language. The Notes app on Mac and iOS has none at all. Potok works the same in any of these apps.
In Craft on Mac, the Ctrl+Space shortcut is taken by its own command that opens Quick Entry, so change Potok's key in the settings. Notion has no official assignment for Ctrl+Space or Cmd+Space: the nearest taken shortcut, Ctrl+Cmd+Space, opens the system emoji picker.
Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps. Versions are available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and the default hotkey is Ctrl+Space; there are no mobile versions. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. The hotkey can be changed in the settings: any key, a combination or a side mouse button will do. Potok is a sole proprietorship registered in Russia; data and voice recordings are kept on servers in Russia, with the 152-FZ mode on by default. For Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps. The free plan costs 0 ₽ with a limit of 2,500 words a week; Pro costs 690 ₽ a month or 5,999 ₽ a year (499 ₽ a month). Here is how Potok works: hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), speak, release — and the finished text is inserted into the active field of any app. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Punctuation by voice in note-taking apps you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Try it on your own texts
Download Potok for Windows, macOS or Linux: full access for the first 14 days, no card needed. After that, 2500 words per week for free or Pro for 690 ₽ per month. Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokThe Potok subscription also includes the Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: forward it a voice message or a long meeting recording and it returns the text. Without a subscription the bot gives 60 minutes per month for free.
Primary sources: support.microsoft.com · support.apple.com · www.apple.com