Inaccurate or poor recognition

If the text that appears is often wrong or missing, try these in order.

1. Choose the right spoken language

Recognizing the wrong language gives very poor results. Set the correct Spoken language (or I speak). See Choose the spoken and translation languages.

2. Switch Transcription to Cloud

Apple's on-device recognizer handles some languages (including Vietnamese) at lower quality. When that happens, the app shows the warning Recognition may be less accurate (Mac) or a similar banner (iPhone, iPad).

For better accuracy, set the Transcription engine to Cloud (OpenAI or ElevenLabs):

• Mac: click Use Cloud right on the warning, or go to Settings → Intelligence & engine and choose the High mode.
• iPhone and iPad: Settings → Intelligence & engines → Transcription → Cloud.

You need to add a cloud connection with an API key first. Realtime mode gives near-instant results but is billed per connection minute.

3. Improve the audio input

• Put the microphone close to the speaker, and use a headset with a mic when you're in a meeting alone.
• Reduce background noise and echo. Use headphones instead of speakers.
• On a Mac, raise Recording quality in Settings → Audio if needed (it only affects the quality of the audio file).

4. Fix things after the meeting

Use Polish a recording to clean up spelling, terminology, and proper names, and the Personal glossary (Mac) to lock in how important terms are translated.

The translation doesn't sound natural

Live translation translates short sentences one at a time, so it can feel choppy. You can:

• Use a Cloud model or a model installed on your Mac for Translation instead of Apple, see AI engines overview.
• On a Mac, raise the translation Latency in Settings → Translation so the app waits for more complete sentences.
• Run Polish a recording after the meeting to translate again with context.