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OpenWhispr listens for five separate shortcuts, each starting a different thing. Most people only ever set the first one, but knowing all five exist explains a lot of surprises — particularly getting an answer when you expected your words typed. They all live in one place: open Settings, then Hotkeys under App.

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The five shortcuts

Only the Dictation Hotkey is set out of the box and it’s the only one you can’t leave empty. The other four are blank until you choose a key, and clearing one switches that feature off rather than breaking it.
The distinction that catches people out is between the first two. Dictation types what you said. The voice agent, in the app’s own words, means “Speak a request — your AI agent types the result, not your words.” If you’re getting replies instead of text, see it answers me instead of typing.

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Defaults

The dictation shortcut is set for you on first run, and what you get depends on your platform: On macOS the Globe key is handled by a small listener bundled with the app rather than by the normal shortcut system. That’s why it can work as a single key when everything else needs a modifier — and why, if that listener fails to start, you’ll see a Globe Hotkey Unavailable message and your other shortcuts keep working. If you’ve changed the dictation hotkey and want to go back, a Reset to [key] link appears under the field. It only shows when your current setting differs from the platform default.

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Changing one

  1. Open Settings, then Hotkeys under App.
  2. Click the field under the shortcut you want — it shows Click to set hotkey or Click to change.
  3. Press the combination you want. The field reads Listening… while it waits.
  4. It saves as soon as it registers. You’ll see Now using [key] for dictation for the dictation slot.
If the combination can’t be used you’ll get a reason rather than silence — “already registered by another application”, “may be reserved by your desktop environment”, or a note that the format isn’t valid. Choosing a shortcut that works covers the rules and what to pick instead.

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More than one key for the same thing

Each shortcut accepts several bindings at once. Under any hotkey field there’s Add another hotkey — use it when you want the same action on, say, both a keyboard shortcut and an external key, or when you switch between two keyboards with different layouts. There’s one limit: on Linux desktops where OpenWhispr registers shortcuts through the desktop environment itself — GNOME, KDE, or Hyprland — each action takes one binding only and the option to add another disappears.

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Unbinding one

Hover over the hotkey and click the bin icon. It only appears on hover, and only when a hotkey is actually set, which is why it’s easy to miss. That works for the four optional shortcuts. The Dictation Hotkey is required — remove its last binding and it won’t clear, because dictation with no shortcut would leave you no way to start. Unbinding the Voice Agent Hotkey is worth knowing about specifically: it stops that shortcut, but it does not stop the agent being triggered by name during ordinary dictation. Those are two different routes to the same feature — see your agent’s name.

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Hold or tap

Underneath the dictation hotkey there’s an Activation Mode control with two settings, Tap and Hold. Tap is the default. Which ones you can use depends on your platform — hold or tap has the detail.