You already know what the reply should say — you just don’t want to type it, again, for the fortieth email of the day. With Clavio you say it. Put your cursor in the Outlook message, trigger Clavio, and talk the reply through the way you’d explain it to the person: the answer, the caveat, the next step. A formal, composed polish turns that into a properly punctuated, professional email — greeting, clean sentences, real paragraphs — and drops it straight into the message, whether you’re in the Outlook for Mac app or Outlook on the web. Nothing sends itself: Clavio writes the reply and stops, so you read it back and press Send when it’s right. The same voice writes the calendar invite, the Teams message, and the note to your manager — the whole inbox becomes something you say, not type.
Put your cursor in the message, trigger Clavio, and reply out loud
Outlook has no name to speak to, so you trigger Clavio with a single hotkey or a wake word — whichever fits your desk. Click into the reply box (or a new message body), tap the key once or say your wake word, and start talking. There’s no window to open and nothing to hold down while you speak, so a reply you’d been putting off becomes thirty seconds of talking. It works the same in the Outlook for Mac app and in Outlook on the web, because Clavio types into whatever field holds your cursor — the reply box, a fresh message, even the subject line — so which one you’re in barely matters. You keep your eyes on the thread and let the words land where the cursor is.
Formal tone, because it’s going to a colleague or a client
An email isn’t a throwaway chat message — someone reads it and forms an impression of you. So keep Clavio on a formal polish for Outlook: it clears the “um,” the “so basically,” and the false starts, and composes your speech into measured, professional prose — full sentences, a greeting and sign-off where you spoke them, punctuation and paragraph breaks inferred so you never have to say “comma” or “new line.” You still sound like you, just email-ready instead of like a transcript. Add colleague and client names, product names, and the acronyms your team lives on to Clavio’s dictionary, and they come through spelled right instead of guessed at — so the message reads like something you wrote carefully, not something you mumbled at your Mac.
Auto-send stays off — you read every email before it leaves
An email goes to a real person, sometimes a whole thread, sometimes your manager — which is exactly why you keep Clavio’s auto-send off in Outlook. Clavio writes the whole reply into the message and then waits: you scan it back, fix a name, add someone to CC, tighten a line, and press Send only when it reads right. Speaking the draft is hands-free; deciding it’s ready to leave your outbox stays a deliberate click, so nothing half-formed lands in a colleague’s inbox. This is the setting that makes voice safe for corporate mail — you get the speed of talking with the control of a final read, every time.
One voice for the whole inbox loop — replies, calendar, Teams
The reply is only one stop. Dictate a new email while the thought is fresh, talk out the meeting invite in your calendar, answer the Teams ping that follows — all in the same composed voice, right where you’re working. Then switch to a casual tone for a personal chat, or dictate the doc you promised in the thread. Clavio remembers the tone per app, so one trigger carries you from Outlook to calendar to Teams to chat — formal where it counts, relaxed where it doesn’t — and because it only answers to your voice, a colleague talking nearby never drops a stray line into your email. That’s the whole inbox loop, end to end, spoken instead of typed.
Recommended Clavio settings for Outlook
| Setting | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Activation | Wake word or hotkey | Outlook has no name to talk to, so trigger with a single hotkey or a wake word — cursor already in the message body, then just speak. |
| Polish level | Formal | Email goes to colleagues and clients — formal composes your spoken reply into measured, professional prose with greeting, sign-off, and punctuation inferred. |
| Auto-send | Off | An email is reviewed and sent to a real person, not fired off. Clavio writes the reply and waits so you scan it, fix the CC, and press Send yourself. |
| Personal dictionary | Add names, clients, acronyms | Keeps colleague and client names, product names, and internal acronyms coming through spelled right instead of guessed at. |
| Snippets | Save your sign-off and signature | Expand a short spoken trigger into your full closing or signature block, so you dictate the body and drop the sign-off in verbatim. |
Reply to email 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 — an Outlook reply, a new message, a calendar invite, plus Teams and your docs. For Outlook you set a formal polish so email reads clean and professional, and keep auto-send off so Clavio writes the reply and waits while you scan it and press Send yourself. A personal dictionary keeps colleague and client names intact, snippets expand your sign-off and signature, and an on-device voiceprint means only your voice sets it off. It works the same in the Outlook Mac app and Outlook on the web. 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 Outlook already have voice input?
Outlook for Mac has a built-in Dictate button that types what it hears, and your Mac has its own dictation feature too — but both drop raw, spoken words into the message with no sense of email register. Clavio is different: a formal polish turns your spoken reply into a properly punctuated, professional email, keeps colleague and client names straight, and leaves the Send button to you — so the message comes out ready to review, not cleaned up afterward. And it works the same in the Outlook app and in Outlook on the web.
Can I reply to email fully hands-free?
You can speak the whole reply hands-free — trigger with your hotkey or wake word, then talk it through with nothing to hold down. Auto-send stays off on purpose, so Clavio writes the reply and waits: you read it back, fix the CC, and press Send yourself. Speaking the email is hands-free; sending it stays one deliberate click — which is exactly what you want for corporate mail.
Will it keep a formal tone and get names right?
Formal polish clears the filler and composes your speech into measured, professional prose — greeting, clean sentences, sign-off — without inventing anything or changing your meaning, so it reads like an email rather than a transcript. To keep names exact, add colleague and client names, product names, and internal acronyms to Clavio’s dictionary, and they come through spelled right instead of guessed at.
Does it work in both the Outlook app and Outlook on the web?
Yes. Clavio types into whatever field holds your cursor, so it writes into the Outlook for Mac app and Outlook on the web the same way — reply box, new message, or subject line. There’s nothing to install into Outlook and no plugin to enable; you put your cursor where the text should go, trigger Clavio, and talk.
Can I use the same voice beyond Outlook?
Yes — that’s the point of a system-wide app. Clavio types into your Outlook email the same way it types into a calendar invite, Teams, and your docs, and remembers the tone per app: formal for email, casual for chat. One trigger carries the whole inbox loop — reply, invite, message, note.