Command Mode: speak instructions, not text
Select text and say what to do with it. Or, with nothing selected, ask Dimmy to write something at the cursor. The AI does the rest.
Normal dictation types what you say. Command Mode flips that: what you say becomes an instruction, and the AI edits or writes text for you, directly in whatever app you are in. The result replaces the selection or appears at the cursor, like a normal paste.
With text selected
Select text in any app, start a recording in Command Mode, and speak. Dimmy reads the selection, applies your instruction, and replaces the selection with the result.
- “Make it more formal.”
- “Translate to English.”
- “Fix the grammar.”
- “Turn this into bullet points.”
- “Shorten it to one sentence.”
If you dictate plain content instead of an instruction, Dimmy understands and simply replaces the selection with what you said. Handy for rewriting a sentence by voice.
With nothing selected
With no selection, your words become a writing request and the result is inserted at the cursor.
- “Write a polite decline to this meeting invite.”
- “Draft a short tweet about our launch.”
- “Give me three subject lines for this email.”
Literal content still works: say “the quick brown fox” and that is exactly what gets inserted, cleaned up with capitalization and punctuation.
Two ways to turn it on
Sticky toggle. Right-click the pill → Command (edit selection). The same toggle is in the tray menu on Windows and in the menu-bar and Dock menus on macOS. The mode stays on, and every recording is a command, until you toggle it off. The pill's dot turns amber while it is active.
One-shot shortcut. Set a dedicated combo in Settings → Shortcut → Command mode shortcut (unset by default). Press it instead of the dictation hotkey to run a single command, then Dimmy goes straight back to normal dictation. It follows the same Hold or Toggle mode as your dictation hotkey. See Dictionary and Command Mode shortcuts.
What it needs
Command Mode uses the same AI model as the AI styles: a cloud provider with your API key, a local LLM, or your Claude subscription. If no model is configured, Dimmy shows a toast pointing to Settings → Providers & keys.