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Halopen
Get Pro · $19

Halopen for Slack

The best Mac dictation tool for Slack

Halopen turns Slack on Mac into a voice-first surface. Hold-to-talk, verbatim by default — messages that read like you wrote them because you did.

Download Halopen See pricing

Free forever for the first 8,000 words a month · macOS 14.0+ · Apple Silicon & Intel

Why this fits

Halopen, paired with Slack.

Halopen is a native macOS dictation app that lands voice-typed messages at the cursor in Slack — in the Slack desktop app for Mac, in slack.com running in Safari, Chrome, Arc, Firefox, or Brave, and in every channel, DM, thread reply, huddle chat, and Canvas input. Hold the function key, speak the message, release; the verbatim text appears in the Slack composer through the macOS Accessibility API on Apple Silicon and Intel.

Slack is async on paper and synchronous in practice. The faster a message can land, the faster a decision can move. Long, considered Slack messages are the highest-leverage form of communication in many teams — and the most labor-intensive to type.

Halopen is the Mac dictation tool that lets you speak those messages instead. Hold the function key, articulate the thread, release. The full message lands in the Slack input verbatim — every nuance preserved.

The workflow

How to use Halopen with Slack.

  1. 1

    Open Slack — Mac app or browser

    Halopen works in both the Slack Mac app and slack.com in any browser.

  2. 2

    Click into any channel or DM

    Cursor goes into the message composer.

  3. 3

    Hold the function key

    Halopen starts recording. The cursor stays in Slack.

  4. 4

    Speak the message

    Long-form is fine — Halopen handles multi-paragraph messages without trouble.

  5. 5

    Release

    Text lands in the Slack composer. Read it; hit return; the team sees it.

What matters for Slack

The Halopen features that earn their place.

  • Long-form messages at speech speed

    Multi-paragraph Slack messages take 30+ seconds to dictate, vs 2-3 minutes to type for most.

  • Verbatim register

    The casual-but-precise register most teams use on Slack lands as you spoke it — terse where you’re terse, expansive where you’re expansive.

  • Works in Slack Mac app and browser Slack

    Halopen is system-wide. Same hotkey, same experience in either surface.

  • Code-aware for thread-with-engineers

    The live preview catches misreads on technical terms; spell out the symbol if needed.

  • Native Swift, idles quietly

    Halopen idles in tens of megabytes with near-zero CPU. Whether you’re in the Slack Mac app or in a browser tab, the dictation layer stays out of the way.

  • Free for 8,000 words a month

    Pro is $19/mo or $179/yr for unlimited.

A real Halopen session

A real Slack message to an engineering team, dictated:

Halopen output

“"Hey team — quick heads up before standup. The paywall A/B from last week shipped to 100% this morning, but I just noticed the analytics event for the upgrade-click on the annual tier is firing twice. Looks like the click handler got bound twice when we collapsed the two tier components. Filing a ticket, but if anyone’s in that file today please don’t add another binding before we see what’s happening."”

  • · "Hey team — quick heads up" — register preserved
  • · Technical specifics ("paywall A/B", "analytics event for the upgrade-click") captured exactly
  • · Hyphenated identifiers preserved
  • · Negative request ("please don’t add another binding") preserved

Why Halopen

The dictation tool that earns its place.

Slack rewards considered messages. Halopen’s verbatim wedge means the considered message you delivered out loud is the considered message your team sees — no labor, no cleanup, no register-flattening.

For engineering teams especially, the ability to dictate a multi-paragraph debugging context faster than typing is a real productivity unlock. The thread that took two minutes to type takes thirty seconds to speak.

Halopen for Slack — FAQ

Questions worth answering.

Does Halopen work in Slack on Mac?

Yes. Halopen works in the Slack Mac app and at slack.com in any browser. Anywhere you can type a message, Halopen can dictate it.

Does Halopen work in Slack threads?

Yes. The thread input is a standard text field; Halopen lands text there the same way as the channel input.

Will Halopen handle Slack’s @-mentions and channel references?

Type the "@" or "#" first, let Slack’s autocomplete do the rest, then dictate the message text. Halopen lands plain text; Slack’s mention machinery handles the rest.

Does Halopen send the message automatically?

No. Halopen lands the text at your cursor. Sending is your decision, your hand on return.

Will my messages be sent to anyone besides Slack?

Audio is sent to Halopen’s transcription service while you hold the key, returned as text, and discarded by Halopen. The message text only goes to Slack when you hit send.

How much does Halopen cost?

Halopen Free is 8,000 words a month, forever. Pro is $19/mo or $179/yr for unlimited.

More Halopen pairings

Halopen for whatever you use most on Mac.

See every Halopen pairing →

Power-user cheat sheet

Take Halopen with you when you work with Slack.

One short email, then the Halopen power-user cheat sheet — hotkeys, best-fit apps, custom vocabulary tips, voice patterns for prompt engineering. No spam. Unsubscribe in one click.

 

Try Halopen with Slack

Hold the function key. Speak.

Halopen Free is 8,000 words a month, forever. Open Halopen, hold the function key, and listen for what you sound like.

Download Halopen See pricing