Remote Dictation

Speak into your local Mac's microphone, and text appears on the remote computer.

Overview

VoxInk can automatically detect when you're using a remote desktop application and send your dictation to the remote machine instead of pasting locally. This means you can dictate naturally into your Mac's microphone while working on a remote Windows machine — no need to configure microphone passthrough or install transcription software on the remote end.

How It Works

1. VoxInk monitors which application has focus on your Mac
2. If the focused app is a remote desktop client, VoxInk sends text to the remote machine via HTTP
3. A lightweight "receiver" app running on the remote machine receives the text and types it out
4. If the remote machine is unreachable, VoxInk falls back to pasting locally

Supported Remote Desktop Apps

VoxInk automatically detects these remote desktop applications:

• Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDC)
• AnyDesk
• TeamViewer
• Parsec
• RustDesk
• Screens (VNC)
• Royal TSX
• NoMachine
• Splashtop
• Citrix Workspace
• VMware Horizon
• Amazon WorkSpaces
• ConnectWise ScreenConnect
• Jump Desktop

Setting Up Remote Dictation

On Your Mac (Sender)

1. Open your VoxInk settings file. You can find it by clicking VoxInk in the menu bar, then Settings → Open Config File. The file opens in a text editor.
2. Find the line that says "remote_url" and change it to point to your remote machine. Replace 192.168.1.100 with your remote machine's IP address:

   {
     "remote_url": "http://192.168.1.100:9876/type"
   }

3. Save the file and restart VoxInk

Replace 192.168.1.100 with the IP address of your remote computer. Not sure what it is? On Windows, open a Command Prompt and type ipconfig — look for the number next to "IPv4 Address".

On the Remote Machine (Receiver)

The VoxInk Receiver is a small helper program that runs on the remote Windows computer. It receives text from your Mac and types it into whatever window you're working in.

1. Install Python 3.10 or later on the remote machine — download from python.org. During installation, make sure to check "Add Python to PATH".
2. Download the receiver files to the remote machine:
   • receiver.py — the receiver script
   • requirements.txt — Python dependencies
   Save both files into the same folder (e.g., C:\VoxInk-Receiver\).
3. Open Command Prompt on the remote computer, navigate to the folder where you saved the files, and run:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

   This installs the libraries the receiver needs to work.

4. Run the receiver:

   python receiver.py

5. The receiver listens on port 9876 by default. You should see a message confirming it's running.

Once running, the receiver will automatically accept text from VoxInk on your Mac and type it out.

Networking

Your Mac and the remote computer need to be able to talk to each other over the network.

• Same office/home network: If both machines are on the same Wi-Fi or wired network, it should work automatically — just use the remote computer's IP address
• Different networks: We recommend Tailscale (free) to securely connect machines across different networks. Install it on both machines and use the Tailscale IP address.
• Firewall issues? If it's not connecting, you may need to allow port 9876 through the Windows firewall on the remote computer

Fallback Behaviour

If the remote computer can't be reached (turned off, disconnected, receiver not running):

• VoxInk will try to send text to the remote computer
• If it can't connect, the text is pasted on your Mac instead
• Your dictation is never lost — it always ends up somewhere