Here is how you can control your Mac with your voice

Thanks to Apple Siri, Google voice search and Microsoft Cortana, voice commands have been finding their way to the desktop. In Apple Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger), the “Speakable Items” feature has been available to Mac users since 2005, although it didn’t gain momentum until after voice commands became popular on mobile devices.

Using voice commands on a Macbook or other Mac products has several advantages, such as an optional and faster shortcut to applications, files and system functions, finally accessible through programmable commands.

Voice commands can be enabled in few quick steps, by accessing System Preferences, then opening the Accessibility panel, and finally Speakable Items, towards the bottom of the list.

Once activated, commands can be issued by holding down a key, but since we are in 2015, it’s time to bypass this clunky method, by checking “Listen continuously with keyword”. This option will allow the user to select a certain word or short phrase, that the Mac OS X will recognize as a prompt for incoming commands.

As mentioned earlier, voice commands work with most system functions and applications. Applications that are not included by default can be added easily in Automator.

Upon launching Automator, we are presented with options to create custom commands for all applications and files existing on our Mac. In Automator, we then choose Launch Application Script, and we drag and drop the script into the right end side panel of Automator.

Once the new script has been created, we are ready to select an application from a drop-down menu. Once the application is selected, we save the item and click on the File Format drop-down menu at the bottom of the Automator panel, and select Speakable Item. Finally, we are given the chance to assign a name to be used for the purpose of opening the application. That name will be the keyword the Mac will be listening for, from now on, in order to open that specific application.

The beauty of Automator and Speakable Items, is in the fact that we can set multiple applications to start with one keyword. For instance, based on daily tasks we expect to perform using the same applications, we could set one key phrase, such as “Writing mode”, which will open iWork, our favorite thesaurus website, a note taking application, while setting the mood with some background music.