How to use Type to Siri on your Mac

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HomePod siri
Siri -- not just good to talk to.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Type to Siri isn’t just for iOS 11. You can also turn on this super-useful feature on your Mac if it’s running macOS High Sierra. Type to Siri lets you do everything you can with normal Siri — call people, send iMessages, look stuff up on the web, do math, set reminders, and so on — only you type the command into a box instead of saying it. Type to Siri is classified as an accessibility feature, but it’s useful for anyone who works in a busy office, or just feels like a dork when they talk to their Mac.

How to enable Type to Siri on Mac

Enable Type to Siri in the Accessibility preferences.
Enable Type to Siri in the Accessibility preferences.
Photo: Cult of Mac

To enable Type to Siri, head to the System Preferences, found under Apple Menu>System Preferences, and click the Accessibility icon. Then, in the sidebar, scroll down to find the Siri icon, and click it.

Here you’ll find a single checkbox: Enable Type to Siri. Click that and you just switched Siri from a spoken interface, to a written one. Now you can do all the neat keyboard tricks that work with Type to Siri on iOS.

Add a keyboard shortcut to activate Siri

Set a keyboard shortcut in Siri's preferences.
Set a keyboard shortcut in Siri’s preferences.
Photo: Cult of Mac

To get the most from Type to Siri on the Mac, you should set a keyboard shortcut to activate it. Otherwise, you’ll have to mouse up to the top left of the menubar and click the Siri icon every time you want to use it. This is done in the Siri preferences, found at Apple Menu>System Preferences>Siri. You can also get to this panel quickly by clicking the shortcut button in the previous Accessibility section.

Quickly add reminders with Type to Siri on Mac.
Quickly add reminders with Type to Siri on Mac.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Here, you can choose whether to show Siri in the menubar, as well as picking the language, and other settings. The one we’re interested in the is Keyboard Shortcut. Click this, and pick a shortcut. if you don’t fancy any of the suggestions, just click Customize… and then press the key you’d like to use. On a desktop Mac, one of the spare Function keys is a good choice.

Now, whenever you want to use Siri, hit the keyboard shortcut, and type your command or query. For some suggestions fo what you can do with Type to Siri, check out out Type to Siri on iOS article, which is full of great tips.

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