You think faster than you type, and in Bear that gap is where good sentences go to die — the thought is fully formed in your head while your fingers are three words behind. With Clavio you just say it. Trigger Clavio, put your cursor in the note, and talk — a whole paragraph, a whole section, as fast as it comes — and finished, paragraphed prose lands in the editor while the Markdown you scaffolded, your #tags and headings and bullets, stays exactly where you left it. A light natural polish clears the filler and shapes your sentences without flattening how you say things, and nothing is fired off anywhere: a note is a draft, so Clavio writes it and waits while you keep shaping it. The same voice carries the piece onward — the email that shares it, the Slack note about it, the next note in the stack — so the whole writing loop becomes something you say.
Keep the flow: trigger, then talk your way through the note
Bear’s whole appeal is a calm, distraction-free place to write, and the moment you break flow to hunt a menu or reach for the trackpad, that spell is gone. Clavio protects it. Bear has no name to speak to, so you give Clavio a wake word or a hotkey — say it, or tap the key once — click into the note, and start talking. The words land at the cursor as you go, and there’s nothing to hold down while you speak, so a long stretch of thinking out loud stays one continuous take instead of a dozen stop-start bursts. That’s the point of a focused writing app, extended to your voice: the sentence in your head becomes the sentence on the page without the detour through your fingers.
Natural polish: a clean draft that still sounds like you
What you’re doing in Bear is drafting, not shipping final copy, so you want a light touch — keep Clavio on natural here. It clears the “um,” the restarts, and the “where was I,” and shapes your speech into clean, punctuated, paragraphed sentences, without rewriting what you meant or sanding off how you put it. You still sound like yourself, just readable enough to edit instead of decipher. And because it types finished prose at the cursor and leaves the note around it alone, the Markdown you’ve laid down — your # headings, - bullets, > quotes, [ ] to-dos — stays exactly as you set it. Add your #tags, note titles, and the names you write about to Clavio’s dictionary, and they come through spelled right instead of guessed at.
It’s a draft, not a message — auto-send stays off
A Bear note isn’t something you fire off; it’s a piece you keep working. That’s exactly why you keep Clavio’s auto-send off here. It writes what you said into the note and then waits — no cursor jumping to the next field, nothing posted, nothing you have to undo. You read the paragraph back, move a sentence, add a heading, speak the next block, and the draft grows the way a draft should: under your hands, one pass at a time. Speaking a whole section in one breath is hands-free; deciding it’s done — and where it goes next — stays yours. You get the speed of dictating long-form and none of the risk of half-formed text escaping before you meant it to.
One voice for the whole writing loop
The note is where the piece starts, not where it ends. Draft it in Bear, then keep the same voice going: dictate the email that sends it to an editor, the Slack message that shares it with the team, the post that announces it, the next note in the stack. Clavio remembers the tone per app, so Bear stays on a natural draft voice while your email turns a touch more polished and your chat replies stay casual — one wake word carries you from blank note to sent. And because it only answers to your voice, someone talking nearby never drops a stray line into your note. That’s a whole writing practice, from the empty page to the thing you shared, spoken instead of typed.
Recommended Clavio settings for Bear
| Setting | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Activation | Wake word or hotkey | Bear has no name to talk to, so trigger with a wake word or a single key — cursor in the note, then just talk, nothing to hold. |
| Polish level | Natural (light polish) | You’re drafting, not shipping — natural clears filler and shapes your sentences without rewriting your voice. |
| Auto-send | Off | A Bear note is a draft you keep editing, not a message you send. Clavio writes it and waits so the piece stays yours to shape. |
| Personal dictionary | Add #tags, titles, names | Keeps your Bear #tags, note titles, and the names you write about spelled right instead of guessed at. |
| Max dictation length | Set it generous | Long-form drafting runs long — give yourself room so a whole section lands in one take without getting cut off mid-thought. |
Draft in Bear by voice with Clavio
Clavio is an AI dictation app for Mac. It sits in your menu bar and types finished text wherever your cursor is — a Bear note, plus your email, Slack, and every other app you write in. For Bear you set a light natural polish so drafts read clean while still sounding like you, keep auto-send off so Clavio writes into the note and waits while you keep editing, and it lands finished prose at the cursor without disturbing the Markdown — your headings, bullets, and #tags — you’ve laid down. A personal dictionary keeps your #tags, note titles, and recurring names intact, and an on-device voiceprint means only your voice sets it off. Free to try: 3,000 words a month, no card, macOS 14+ on Apple Silicon. Pro is £12/month for unlimited.
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Common questions
Does Bear have its own dictation?
Bear has no built-in voice input. Your Mac has a dictation feature you can switch on, but it types raw words verbatim — no paragraphs, and no punctuation unless you say it out loud — which falls apart on anything longer than a line. Clavio adds a natural polish that punctuates and paragraphs a whole spoken draft, keeps your #tags and the names you write about spelled right, leaves your Markdown alone, and works everywhere else you write too.
Can I write in Bear fully hands-free?
Yes. Say your wake word or tap your hotkey once, then talk — a sentence, a paragraph, a whole section — with nothing to hold down while you speak. Auto-send stays off on purpose, because a note is a draft: Clavio writes what you said into it and waits, so you read it back, move things around, and speak the next block. Dictating is hands-free; deciding the draft is done stays yours.
Will it mangle my words or the names I write about?
Natural polish tidies filler and shapes your sentences without rewriting what you meant or flattening how you say it — you still sound like you. To keep specifics exact, add your Bear #tags, note titles, and recurring names to Clavio’s dictionary, and they come through spelled right instead of guessed at.
Does it keep my Markdown and note structure?
Yes. Clavio types finished prose at the cursor and leaves the note around it alone, so the Markdown you’ve scaffolded — your # headings, - bullets, > quotes, [ ] to-dos — stays exactly where you put it. You dictate the words; the structure you laid down is left untouched.
Can I use the same voice beyond Bear?
Yes — that’s the point of a system-wide app. Clavio types into your Bear note the same way it types into email, Slack, and any other app you write in, and remembers the tone per app: a natural draft voice for Bear, a touch more polished for email, casual for chat. One wake word carries the whole writing loop, from first draft to the thing you shared.