Context Awareness
Use selected text, clipboard text, and visible screen text in AI-enhanced Modes.
What Context Awareness Does
Context Awareness lets an AI-enhanced Mode use surrounding information when shaping the final output. The Mode can include:
| Context source | How VoiceInk gets it |
|---|---|
| Selected Text | Reads the current selection through macOS Accessibility. |
| Clipboard | Reads text currently on the clipboard at recording start. |
| Screen | Captures the active window and extracts visible text with OCR. |
Context is captured around recording time and sent as text to the enhancement provider only when the Mode has that source enabled.
Context is used only by AI Enhancement. Plain Dictation Modes do not send selected text, clipboard text, or screen text to an AI provider.
Enable Context for a Mode
- Open Modes.
- Edit a Mode with AI Enhancement enabled.
- Expand Context Awareness.
- Turn on Selected Text, Clipboard, or Screen.
- Save the Mode.
Permissions
| Context source | Required permission |
|---|---|
| Selected Text | Accessibility |
| Clipboard | No extra permission |
| Screen | Screen Recording |
If Accessibility is missing, selected text is skipped. If Screen Recording is missing, screen context is skipped.
Screen Context
For Screen context, VoiceInk captures the active window, runs OCR locally with Apple's Vision framework, and sends extracted text to the AI provider as part of the prompt context. The screenshot image itself is not the context payload.
Prompt Tags
When you enable a context source for a Mode and that context is available, your custom prompts can refer to it by tag:
| Tag | Context |
|---|---|
<CURRENTLY_SELECTED_TEXT> | Selected text. |
<CLIPBOARD_CONTEXT> | Clipboard text. |
<CURRENT_WINDOW_CONTEXT> | Text extracted from the active window. |
For the full input format, see Creating a Custom Prompt.
Good Uses
- Rewrite selected text by speaking an instruction.
- Draft a reply using a selected email or message thread.
- Ask the Assistant about visible content in the active window.
- Preserve names, tasks, or dates from nearby text.