Remove um and uh from Mac dictation, automatically.
To remove “um” and “uh” from dictation on a Mac, use a dictation app that cleans up as you speak, or run a whole-word Find and Replace afterwards. Apple Dictation’s help pages don’t mention filler removal. This guide shows what each option does to the same sentence, and which step runs on your Mac and which in the cloud.
Who it’s for: anyone who dictates emails, notes or messages and is tired of deleting “um” by hand. You’ll leave with a five-minute test you can run tonight, a free regex, and a straight comparison of Noted with Spokenly, VoiceInk, Voibe and Wispr Flow. We build Noted, so we say where the others are better.
TL;DR
- Apple’s Dictation pages don’t say it removes “um” and “uh”, so plan on deleting them yourself or using an app that does it as you dictate.
- Find and Replace works but leaves stray commas and can cut letters out of real words unless you match whole words.
- Noted drops um, uh, er and similar fillers on your Mac, with no cloud step. The optional cloud Polish step does the heavier rewriting.
- Spokenly and VoiceInk can be better fits: Spokenly runs a small language model on your Mac, and VoiceInk lets you edit the filler list.
- Our founder tested Noted’s filler removal by hand with live speech, on Mac and Windows, November 2026. The examples below are typed text run through the real code and a regex.
Does Apple Dictation on Mac remove um and uh?
Apple’s pages don’t say it does. Its Dictation guide describes automatic commas, periods and question marks in supported languages, spoken punctuation, and, on newer macOS versions, an Apple Intelligence model that improves spelling, punctuation and capitalization for some Macs (English only). It says nothing about fillers. Checked 12 November 2026. If a filler does show up, you’re deleting it by hand. Dictation also stops after a pause; see Mac dictation not working? Fixes that work.
What we ran, and what we haven’t tested
On 12 November 2026 we ran the checks below. Nothing here is a claim from memory.
- Ran: Noted’s clean-up tests.
cargo test --lib polish::in the desktop app passed all 5 tests: fillers dropped, a repeated word collapsed, a simple false start dropped, sentence casing applied, and look-alike words kept. - Read: where it is called. The dictation code runs the same tidy-up on every dictation before the text is pasted. The clean-up has no platform-specific branch, so the Windows app shares it.
- Tested by hand by our founder on Mac and Windows, November 2026: dictating into Noted with live speech, fillers included.
- Ran: the Find and Replace pattern. We ran the regex in this post in a terminal on the sample sentence, and on “Bring an umbrella” with and without whole-word matching.
- Read: the privacy page and rival help pages. Every rival claim below comes from a page we opened that day, linked in Sources.
What we have and have not tested. We did not test Apple Dictation, Spokenly, VoiceInk, Voibe or Wispr Flow ourselves. Our founder’s hand test of Noted counted nothing, and the table below uses typed text, so we can’t tell you how often your speech engine writes “um” in the first place.
What does the same sentence look like in each option?
We typed one sentence the way it might be transcribed and ran it through a regex and through Noted’s clean-up function, as its unit tests do. It is not a live audio test.
| Option | Result for “So um the meeting is, uh, on Friday, you know, at noon” |
|---|---|
| Apple Dictation | Not tested; its pages don’t describe filler removal, so assume the words stay. |
| Find and Replace (regex, whole words, case-insensitive) | “So the meeting is, on Friday, you know, at noon”: a stray comma is left and “you know” stays. |
| Noted | “So the meeting is on Friday at noon” |
The same regex without whole-word matching turns “Bring an umbrella” into “Bring anbrella”. That is why every tool below matches whole words only.
How do you remove ums tonight? A five-step plan
- Test your own tool first. Dictate “So um the meeting is, uh, on Friday” and look at the text. If the fillers aren’t there, you have nothing to fix.
- Free and quick: use Find and Replace. Paste the text into any editor with regex search and turn on whole-word matching and ignore-case.
- Use this pattern. Search
\s*\b(um|uh)\b,?and replace with nothing. It removes the word, the space before it and one comma after it. - Check the look-alikes. Try “Bring an umbrella” and “Do you know him?”. Both should come out unchanged. If not, whole-word matching is off.
- Read it once. Leftover commas and doubled words are on you. If you do this after every dictation, move to an app that cleans up as you speak.
What does Noted remove, and where does it run?
Two separate steps, and only one needs the cloud. We read this from the app’s code and the privacy page.
- Always on, on your Mac: after speech becomes text, a built-in tidy-up drops um, umm, uh, uhh, er, erm and hmm, collapses a repeated word (“the the”), drops “you know” when it is an aside, drops a simple false start (“I think, I mean we should ship” becomes “We should ship”), and capitalises the first word. It uses no network and no model. It leaves words that only look like fillers, such as “umbrella” and “Do you know him?”.
- Optional, in the cloud: Polish is Noted’s dictation clean-up for grammar and wording. With Cloud on, it sends the text you Polish, with your dictionary words, to be processed and not stored. Turn Cloud off in Settings and nothing is sent. Free includes Polish within a monthly limit; Pro has no limit (see pricing).
If you use Polish on a selection rather than on live dictation, see Fix grammar in selected text on Mac. For privacy in more detail, see which Mac dictation apps work with Wi-Fi off.
How do Spokenly, VoiceInk, Voibe and Wispr Flow handle fillers?
| App | What its page says (checked 12 November 2026) |
|---|---|
| Spokenly | Local Model Cleanup runs a small language model on your computer after each dictation, removing fillers and repeats and fixing punctuation. Off by default. Mac needs Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later; about 768 MB of disk space. Dictations over about 1,600 English words are left unchanged. |
| VoiceInk | Removes words on a list you can add to or delete from; default is uh, um, uhm, hmm, mmm. Whole words only, not case-sensitive. The page doesn’t say which platforms it covers. |
| Voibe | Smart Formatting removes um, uh, like, you know, hedges, repeats and false starts. Its AI formatting uses a zero-retention cloud model; to keep everything on your Mac, its page says to pick its engine that transcribes on your Mac and switch AI formatting off. |
| Wispr Flow | Auto Cleanup (beta) has levels; the default Light cleans fillers and grammar, and None pastes exactly what you said. Backtrack handles self-corrections such as “scratch that”. The page doesn’t say where processing runs. |
Where they’re better. Spokenly: a language model on your Mac cleans more than a word list, with no cloud step. VoiceInk: you can edit the filler list yourself. Voibe: it also removes “like” and hedge words and has a setting that keeps everything on your Mac. Wispr Flow: Backtrack understands “scratch that” corrections. None of these pages carried a date, so features may have changed.
Where Noted is better. The tidy-up needs no setup, no extra model and no newer Mac: it is always on in free dictation, which has no word limit, on macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Spokenly’s page puts its cleanup on Apple silicon with macOS 15 or later and about 768 MB of disk. And speech becomes text on your Mac before the tidy-up runs, so neither step sends your voice anywhere.
Our point of view
Removing a filler should not need the internet. “Um” is a mechanical problem, so we solved it with a short fixed list that runs on your Mac and costs nothing to run. That is why the tidy-up is always on and the free tier never waits on a server for it.
Rewriting is a different job, and it should be your choice. Polish changes your wording, so it sits behind a separate Cloud switch and sends text only when you use it. We would rather tell you which step leaves your Mac than hide it in one “smart” button.
Boring and predictable beats clever here. The tidy-up keeps “umbrella” and “Do you know him?” on purpose. A tool that is right 99 times and quietly eats a real word on the 100th costs you more than the fillers did. Your own words are in the custom words guide.
Limitations, honestly
- The list is fixed and English-only. You can’t add your own filler. VoiceInk’s page describes an editable list, so it fits better if you want one.
- We don’t remove “like”. Voibe’s page says it does, and Spokenly’s model can judge context, which a word list can’t.
- False starts are narrow. We catch the unpunctuated “, I mean” restart. Other self-corrections stay; Wispr Flow’s Backtrack page describes “scratch that” handling.
- Apple Dictation is built in and free. If your speech rarely contains fillers, you don’t need anything else.
- The examples are typed. Our founder tested Noted with live speech, but the table uses typed text. Real speech engines differ in what they write down.
FAQ
Does Apple Dictation remove filler words?
Apple’s Dictation help pages don’t say so. We haven’t tested it with live audio.
Will removing “um” also delete “umbrella”?
Not if the tool matches whole words, which a good Find and Replace and the apps above do.
Is Noted’s filler removal free?
Yes. The built-in tidy-up is part of free dictation. Polish, the cloud step, is free within a monthly limit.
Does Noted send my dictation to the cloud to remove ums?
No. Fillers are dropped on your Mac. Only the optional Polish step sends text, and only with Cloud on.
Can I add my own filler words in Noted?
Not at the moment. The list is fixed; VoiceInk’s page describes an editable one.
Which fillers does Noted remove?
Um, umm, uh, uhh, er, erm and hmm, plus “you know” as an aside, repeated words and simple false starts.
Sources
- Dictate messages and documents on Mac (Apple Support)
- Local Model Cleanup (Spokenly)
- Filler words (VoiceInk)
- Smart Formatting (Voibe)
- Smart Formatting & Backtrack (Wispr Flow help)
Checked 12 November 2026. Noted isn’t affiliated with Apple, Spokenly, VoiceInk, Voibe or Wispr.
Hold one key and talk, in any app: Noted Dictation.