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When your microphone input is set too low, HyperWhisper may miss words or produce muffled transcriptions. This guide explains how to check and adjust your system microphone volume, and how to configure every option in Settings → Sound.

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Video Walkthrough

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Checking and Adjusting System Microphone Volume

The system microphone slider controls the hardware capture level. HyperWhisper reads audio from the device at whatever level the system reports — if the slider is low, every transcription provider receives quieter audio.
1

Open Sound settings

Go to System Settings → Sound → Input.
2

Select your microphone

Pick the device you use for recording. The Input volume slider below the device list controls its capture level.
3

Set the input volume

Drag the slider to the right. Speaking at your normal dictation volume should push the Input level meter to roughly the middle or higher. If the meter barely moves, raise the slider.

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Sound Settings

Open Settings → Sound in HyperWhisper to configure audio behavior during recording.

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Sound Effects

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Media Control While Recording

Choose how HyperWhisper handles other audio when you start recording.

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Microphone

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Auto-Increase Microphone Volume

When enabled, HyperWhisper automatically raises your microphone input to 90% when recording starts, then restores the original level when recording stops.
  • On macOS, this applies to both the system default device and any specific device you have selected in HyperWhisper. If the device does not expose a software-controllable volume, the boost is skipped silently. The original volume is always restored.
  • On Windows, the boost only applies when your current capture volume is below 50%. If your mic is already at 50% or higher, the level is left unchanged.
This is useful if you often forget to set your mic level before recording. It is not a substitute for a well-configured input level — if your device does not support software volume control, this setting has no effect.

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Keep Microphone Warm

Keeps a quiet idle audio session open between recordings so the microphone is ready the moment you trigger push-to-talk. This eliminates the brief startup delay that is especially noticeable with Bluetooth microphones.
While Keep microphone warm is on, macOS displays the orange microphone indicator in the menu bar continuously — even when you are not recording. Bluetooth headsets may also stay in their lower-quality call audio profile rather than switching to stereo mode. Turn this off if those trade-offs matter to you.

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Microphone Selection

To change which input device HyperWhisper records from, see Select a Microphone or Audio Input Device.

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Voice Activity Detection (VAD)

When Remove silence before transcription is on, HyperWhisper analyzes the audio clip after you stop recording and strips leading and trailing silence using an AI voice-detection model (Silero VAD) before sending audio to the transcription provider.Why enable it:
  • Reduces the amount of audio sent to cloud providers, which can lower API costs.
  • Can speed up transcription, especially for short clips with long pauses at the start or end.
  • May improve accuracy by removing noise-only segments from the input.
When to leave it off:
  • If your recordings consistently start and end with speech, VAD adds a small processing step with no benefit.