Guide
Use your iPhone as a microphone for your Mac
Your iPhone has a better microphone than most laptops, and you can put it to work for your Mac in two different ways. Which one you want depends on whether you need your voice or your words.
| You want to | Use | What your Mac gets |
|---|---|---|
| Be heard on a video call, record a podcast or a voiceover | Continuity Camera, built into macOS | Live audio, as an input device |
| Write with your voice: prompts, messages, notes | Macrophone | Text, on the clipboard or in the app you’re using |
For calls and recording: Continuity Camera#
macOS can use a nearby iPhone as a camera and microphone with no extra app. It needs a Mac running macOS 13 Ventura or later and an iPhone XR or later on iOS 16 or later, signed in to the same Apple Account, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on.
- Put the iPhone near your Mac, locked and still. A stand helps.
- On the Mac, open System Settings › Sound › Input, or the audio settings of the app you're using.
- Choose your iPhone's microphone from the list.
This sends audio, live, which is what a call or a recording app needs. It doesn't turn speech into text.
For writing: Macrophone#
If what you're after is text (a long prompt for Claude, a Slack reply, a note), streaming audio to the Mac is the long way round. Macrophone does the transcription on the iPhone and sends only the words.
- Hold the phone, or don't. Walk around, lie on the couch, stand at a whiteboard. The phone doesn't need to be near the Mac, just on the same network or close enough to connect directly.
- Cleaned up as it goes. On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, filler words, repeats and false starts are removed on the phone before the text is sent.
- Lands where you need it. Straight into Claude, ChatGPT or the Terminal tab running Claude Code, and sent; copied to the clipboard; or handed to a note, a script, a webhook or an AI agent.
- Private. Speech is transcribed on the iPhone, no audio is kept, and nothing goes through a server.
It also works when the two aren't on the same Apple Account, which helps with a work Mac and a personal phone.
Why not just use the Mac’s own dictation?#
You can, and for a sentence or two at your desk it's fine. It listens through the Mac's microphone, so it works best when you're right in front of it, and the text only goes where your cursor is. Macrophone is for when you're away from the keyboard, when you're dictating something long, or when the words should go somewhere other than the cursor.
Try it#
Macrophone is free on both sides. Install the iPhone app, download the Mac app, and pair them once by scanning a QR code.
iPhone with iOS 17 or laterMac with macOS 14 or laterCleanup needs an Apple Intelligence–capable iPhone on iOS 26 or later