1. Choose Ramble, Quick Add, field Dictation, or Siri
Ramble is Todoist’s voice-to-tasks feature. It transcribes in real time, identifies separate actions, and can extract projects, dates, deadlines, priorities, and durations from natural speech. That makes it the native choice when the desired output is one or more structured Todoist tasks.
Quick Add is the typed or focused-field task composer. A task description or comment is already attached to a task you chose. Standard macOS Dictation supplies text to those supported fields without deciding which Todoist records to create. Todoist’s direct Siri integration is currently documented for iOS, not macOS.
- Choose Ramble for a spoken list that should become tasks.
- Choose Quick Add for one task whose fields you will set explicitly.
- Choose focused-field Dictation for prose in an existing description or comment.
2. Start Ramble from Todoist or anywhere on Mac
In Todoist, click the waveform in Quick Add or the sidebar. Todoist also documents Shift + Q while the app is active. From another app, use the global Quick Ramble shortcut or the Todoist menu-bar control.
Todoist’s current shortcut documentation lists Option + Shift + R for new macOS app downloads and Shift + Option + Space for existing installs that retain the previous shortcut. Settings → Desktop is the source of truth for the current Mac. The separate global Quick Add shortcut is Option + Space.
3. Speak tasks, inspect preview, then commit
Speak naturally but signal each action clearly and pause slightly between tasks. Ramble captures tasks in real time rather than waiting for the end of the recording. You can say phrases such as “Actually, make that…” to revise a suggestion or “Remove that” to delete one while the session is active.
Ramble shows suggested tasks in preview. End the session with “that’s all” or the Add tasks control only after checking the task names, project, section, assignee, labels, dates, deadlines, priorities, durations, and every correction. Voice recognition should not silently decide work ownership or timing.
4. Use Quick Add or Dictation for one chosen field
Press Q in Todoist or use Option + Space from another Mac app to open Quick Add. Todoist can interpret natural-language dates and explicit symbols for projects, sections, labels, priorities, reminders, deadlines, and assignees. Review each parsed chip because a word intended as task text can be recognized as metadata.
For a longer task description or comment, open the intended task and focus that exact field. Start the configured macOS Dictation shortcut, speak, stop, review the result, and save or post separately. This path supplies text; it does not create a batch of tasks or infer the surrounding Todoist structure.
5. Keep Ramble’s AI and saved-task boundaries distinct
Todoist says Ramble is built on Todoist Assist and uses large language models to transcribe speech across more than 40 languages, extract actions, and interpret structured details. Its current help also says Ramble requires an internet connection.
For Ramble specifically, Todoist says audio is processed securely, is not stored, and is not used for training; the resulting tasks and their details are the data saved in Todoist. Todoist Assist documentation separately says processing flows through Doist infrastructure, not directly to OpenAI, with providers available through AWS Bedrock and Google Cloud Vertex AI that have committed not to train on processed data.
Do not turn the audio statement into a claim that saved tasks, account data, usage data, or every AI input disappears. Once tasks are added, they are Todoist account content under the current Workspace and privacy controls.
6. Check monthly sessions, task limits, and app version
Todoist currently gives free or Beginner accounts, plus Pro Legacy accounts, up to 10 Ramble sessions per month. The count resets on the first day of each month in UTC, is shared across devices, and each dictation counts even when you decide not to add its tasks.
Pro and Business plans list unlimited Ramble sessions, although rate limits may apply. Ramble also follows Todoist task limits: the current guide uses 300 active tasks in one project as the example where another task cannot be added. Todoist lists web or desktop version 9250 or later for the latest Ramble features.
7. Keep Siri’s iOS integration out of the Mac workflow
Todoist documents direct Siri task creation and retrieval for iOS. The same current guide explicitly says there is no option to use that Todoist Siri integration on macOS, Apple Watch, or CarPlay.
On iOS, a Shortcut can also open Ramble after you say “Hey Siri, open Ramble.” That is different from Todoist’s direct Siri commands and different again from the global Mac Ramble shortcut. Do not troubleshoot a missing macOS Siri integration by changing Ramble or microphone settings.
8. Troubleshoot the correct capture path
Ramble is not supported inside Todoist browser extensions because those extensions cannot reliably access the microphone. Open Todoist in a full browser tab or the desktop app instead, confirm internet access, and select the active microphone inside Ramble.
For the Mac app, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone, enable Todoist, and reload the app. If Ramble opens but recognition is weak, reduce background noise, move closer to the microphone, speak more slowly, and pause between tasks.
If only ordinary Dictation fails, test one sentence in TextEdit and use Apple’s separate Dictation checks. Browser microphone permission affects Ramble on todoist.com; it is not the usual requirement for system Dictation into a focused web field.
9. Add IraVoice only for a distinct local workflow
Use Ramble when Todoist should interpret a spoken brain dump and create structured tasks. Use Quick Add or macOS Dictation first for an occasional task or existing field.
IraVoice 0.7.1 is the separate option for macOS 26+ Apple-silicon Macs when recognition and supported formatting should run on the Mac across supported editable fields, or when a longer spoken plan should become reviewable Markdown first. IraVoice does not sign in to Todoist, read projects, create or update tasks, choose dates or priorities, assign people, post comments, press Add tasks, or sync account data.