Frequently Asked Questions

Fictate™ is a dictation app designed specifically for fiction writers. You speak your story; Fictate™ transcribes it and keeps your work organized in your Recordings — ready to paste into your manuscript.

Fictate™ is available as an iOS/Android mobile app and as a web app you can use in any desktop browser. Your account, recordings, dictionary, and settings sync automatically between all your devices.

Yes, today. Go to app.fictateapp.com in Chrome, Edge, or Firefox on your PC and sign in with your account (or create one right there). You can record, transcribe, run Cleanup, and edit right there in the browser — nothing to download or install, and everything syncs with your phone automatically.

And Fictate™ Anywhere for PC types your dictation straight into whatever program you're writing in — Word, Scrivener, your email — with one tap of the Right Ctrl key. Get it under Account & Settings → Fictate Anywhere for Mac & PC once you're signed in.

If your browser pauses the download: the installer is new, so browsers double-check it. In Chrome, click the ⋮ beside the file and choose Keep. In Edge, choose Keep, then on the "Make sure you trust" screen click the small arrow on the Delete button and choose Keep anyway. When you run the installer, if Windows shows its "protected your PC" notice, click More info, then Run anyway. The app is signed by RockHaven Partners LLC, and that is the publisher name you will see.

Chrome and Edge are the recommended browsers, and Safari works well too. Some privacy-focused browsers (Arc, for example) can silently block microphone access — if the recording meter doesn't move while you speak, or playback is silent, switch to Chrome or Edge.

Some home and office networks, routers, and security programs haven't met our new web address yet and hold it back. Use fictate-app.vercel.app instead — it's the very same app, same account, same everything, on an address every network already trusts. Bookmark it and you're set. (If you'd like to fix it for good, adding fictateapp.com to your router's or security program's allowed sites ends it.)

You can record anywhere. The words come back when you have a connection.

Recording never needs the internet, so a plane, a trail, or a basement with no signal is all fine. Your audio is saved safely on your device and is never lost, and you transcribe it once you're back online.

Transcription itself does need a connection, because that is where the accuracy comes from — the same reason Fictate™ understands dialogue and your characters' names instead of guessing at them. Rough Preview needs a connection too. Those words appearing while you speak are coming back to you live, not being produced on your phone.

One thing that catches people out: on an iPhone, turning on Airplane Mode switches Wi‑Fi off, but Wi‑Fi can be switched back on while Airplane Mode stays active — and your phone remembers that choice. The airplane icon stays in your status bar the whole time, so it looks like you're offline when you aren't. If you want a genuine offline test, turn Wi‑Fi off as well.

Every feature has a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots at fictateapp.com/learn, starting with a five minute quick start that gets your first words on the page. There is a search box at the top of that page, so you can go straight to whatever you need.

Fictate™ isn't a Mac App Store download. On a Mac you use it two ways, and most authors use both: app.fictateapp.com in your browser for recording, transcripts, and Cleanup, and Fictate™ Anywhere for Mac, the menu-bar app that types your dictation straight into Scrivener, Word, or wherever you write. Get it under Account & Settings → Fictate Anywhere for Mac & PC.

That's the Fictate™ Anywhere keyboard, and your phone simply remembers whichever keyboard you used last. Tap the globe key at the bottom of the keyboard to switch back to your usual one, and it stays until you choose Fictate™ again. On iPhone, holding the globe key shows every keyboard so you can pick.

There is a full seven-step walkthrough with pictures here: Installing Fictate™ Anywhere on your Mac. The step people miss is ejecting the installer afterward. If a Fictate icon stays on your desktop and keeps showing you a drag-to-Applications window, that is the leftover installer, not the app.

Yes — check your microphone before you begin dictating. Phones don't always switch to a plugged-in or Bluetooth mic automatically, and if the phone quietly records from its built-in mic (say, from your pocket), your transcription quality will suffer badly. iPhone: go to Account → Microphone and select your mic from the list. Fictate™ remembers your choice for every future session until you change it — set it once and you're done. If you unplug that mic, Fictate™ falls back to Automatic for that session. Android: your phone routes to the most recently connected mic automatically. Make sure it's connected before you start recording, and do a quick test recording to confirm it sounds close and clear. A 10-second test recording at the start of a session is the best insurance for a long dictation walk.

Tap the microphone button on the home screen. Tap the stop button (square) when you're done and Fictate™ will take you straight to the transcription screen.

Yes. While recording, tap Pause. Tap Resume to continue. The timer stops while paused.

Recording itself has no limit — Fictate™ will happily record for hours. Transcription is different: a single recording longer than about 50 minutes is too large to transcribe in one piece. Your audio is always saved either way, but the transcription of a too-long file will fail. Best practice: dictate in 15–20 minute chunks. Stop & save, then immediately start a new recording — it takes two taps and your flow barely pauses. Fictate™ shows a gentle reminder at 15 minutes and a firmer warning at 40.

On the mobile app, Fictate™ keeps recording in the background even when the screen is off — designed for long dictation sessions. On Android you'll see a small "Fictate™ is recording" notification while you record. That notification is what keeps the microphone alive with the screen off — it disappears the moment you stop. The web version can't record in the background, so while you're recording Fictate™ keeps your screen awake automatically. Keep the browser tab in front while dictating — switching tabs or minimizing can silence the microphone.

On mobile, Fictate™ auto-saves a snapshot of your in-progress recording every 30 seconds to your device storage. On web, snapshots are saved to your browser's local storage every 30 seconds. If the tab closes unexpectedly, the next time you tap the microphone you'll be offered the option to recover the draft.

A phone call takes over your phone's microphone, so recording can't continue through it. When a call comes in, Fictate™ stops the recording and saves everything captured up to that point. After the call, just start a new recording to keep going. To avoid interruptions during a long session, turn on Do Not Disturb first (see below).

Do Not Disturb silences calls and notifications so they don't interrupt your dictation. iPhone — ON: open Control Center (swipe down from the top-right corner, or up from the bottom edge on older iPhones), tap Focus, then tap Do Not Disturb. OFF: open Control Center again and tap Do Not Disturb so it's no longer highlighted. You can also manage it in Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb. Android — ON: swipe down from the top to open Quick Settings (swipe down a second time to see all the tiles), then tap the Do Not Disturb tile. OFF: tap that tile again. You can also find it in Settings → Notifications → Do Not Disturb (the exact path varies a little by phone maker).

Granola monitors the system microphone at the OS level and can't distinguish a call from a dictation session. The cleanest fix is to add your browser to Granola's ignored apps list: 1. Open Granola → Settings 2. Find Ignored Apps or Exclusions 3. Add your browser (Chrome, Safari, Arc, etc.) You can also pause Granola temporarily from its menu bar icon.

Turn it on in Account & Settings and a rough draft of your words appears on screen a beat behind your voice, so you can glance back at what you just said. It is a preview, not your transcript. The moment you stop, Fictate™ produces the real transcript the way it always has, and that is what gets kept. If the preview stalls it simply pauses and says so. Your recording is never affected.

Fictate™ transcribes 99 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Finnish, Japanese, and many more. Choose yours in Account & Settings → Dictation Language. The Cleanup Tool returns your words in the language you spoke them. It never translates your writing.

Yes, automatically. Filler sounds don't make it into your transcript, so you can think out loud, pause, and restart without cleaning any of it up afterward. If you'd rather keep them, say for a character who hesitates, email support@fictioncourses.com and ask. It's a switch on our side.

When Auto-Punctuate is on, Fictate™ infers punctuation automatically from your speech patterns — recommended for most non-English languages. When it's off, you speak punctuation cues aloud ("period," "comma," "new paragraph") and Fictate™ converts them to the correct symbols.

Auto-Punctuate applies grammar-appropriate punctuation for the detected language. Quality is best for widely spoken languages. Verbal punctuation commands (spoken cues) are currently English-only.

Fictate™ keeps a transcription going for a short window even if you switch away, so brief interruptions are fine. For a long recording, it's safest to stay on the screen until the transcript appears — your phone limits how long an app can keep working in the background. (Recording itself runs in the background without any limit; this only applies to transcribing.)

The ✦ Cleanup Tool (included with every plan) tidies your transcript: punctuation, capitalization, smart quotes, verbal stumbles, and quotation marks around your dialogue. It never rewrites your sentences or adds anything you didn't say. You can teach it your own formatting rules in Account & Settings → Cleanup Style.

Your manuscript lives in your writing software — Scrivener, Word, Google Docs — not in Fictate™. Each recording is a chunk of dictation: transcribe it, Copy or Email the text, and paste it into your manuscript where the story continues. Then start your next recording and keep going. Think of Fictate™ as your dictation studio, not your filing cabinet. Once a chunk is safely in your manuscript, you can delete the recording here — your story's home is your manuscript.

Two ways. Copy a transcript and paste it into any writing app, italics included, or export it as a file that Word, Pages, and Scrivener open directly. On your computer, Fictate™ Anywhere types your dictation straight into the app you're writing in, Campfire and Scrivener included, so nothing needs importing at all.

Fictate™ doesn't sync to Dropbox on its own; save your exported file there and it goes wherever Dropbox goes. For a PDF, print to PDF from your writing app.

Tap Copy on the transcript, open your Scrivener project, tap where the story continues, and paste — your italics come through intact. This is the fastest, most reliable path on a phone. On iPhone, Fictate Anywhere goes a step further: dictate right inside Scrivener itself, with no copying or pasting at all. Set it up from Account → Fictate Anywhere Keyboard. On a computer, downloading the transcript as a file (Download button) opens directly in Scrivener, Word, or Pages.

Say “italics” where the emphasis begins and “end italics” where it stops. “Italicize,” “open italics,” and “begin italics” all work to start a span; “end italics,” “close italics,” and “stop italics” all close it. The words in between come back wrapped in underscores — the traditional manuscript convention every editor reads as italic, and what Scrivener, Word, and Vellum expect. Handy for emphasis, book titles, and interior or telepathic dialogue.

Yes. Say “poem mode” (or “poetry mode”), “screenplay mode,” or “outline mode” at the start of a recording, and Fictate™ keeps your line breaks exactly where you put them instead of running everything into prose paragraphs. The command itself is removed from your transcript.

Yes. Account & Settings → Custom Commands lets you create spoken shortcuts for phrases or formatting you use constantly. It is one of the newest parts of Fictate™, so tell me what breaks and what you wish it did.

Yes. Open the menu and tap Cleanup Raw Text, paste your text in, run Cleanup, and copy the result out. Useful for tidying older dictation from another app without re-recording a word of it. Included with every plan.

If Fictate™ consistently mishears a word — a character name, a made-up place, an unusual proper noun — add it to your dictionary. Fictate™ uses your dictionary to bias transcription toward your preferred spellings.

New words work on every recording you make from that moment on — nothing needs to be "loaded" first. Already-transcribed recordings don't rewrite themselves automatically, but two things do fix them. If you add a word while viewing a transcript, that transcript updates instantly. For any older recording, open it and tap Re-try — it re-transcribes with your current dictionary. One tip that does most of the work: fill in the "What Fictate™ hears" field with exactly what Fictate™ wrongly wrote (you can list several, separated by commas — for example, for MC1: "m c one, Mc one, MC one"). Those wrong spellings are then corrected automatically every time.

Build an outline for your book in the Outlines menu, then tap OUTLINE on the home screen to keep it on screen while you dictate. Your beats stay in front of you scene after scene, so you always know what you are speaking toward. Included with every plan.

Your home screen shows your word count for the day. Tap it to open the full history and watch the days stack up. Ten minutes adds up faster than most authors expect, and seeing it happen turns out to be its own motivation.

Set a timer on the home screen before you start and your dictation session has a defined finish instead of running open-ended. Good for sprints, lunch breaks, and the fifteen minutes you have before you need to leave.

Deleted recordings are moved to a trash area and kept for 7 days, after which they are permanently removed. To restore one within that window, open the menu (the icon at the top-left of the home screen), tap Deleted Recordings, and tap Restore.

Yes. Open any recording from your Recordings and tap the transcript to edit it directly. Changes are saved automatically.

No. Once your words land in your writing app, they belong to that document.

Fictate™ Anywhere is a one‑way handoff. It types your words into Word, Scrivener, Notes, or wherever your cursor is, and from that moment you have two separate copies: the one in your manuscript, and the transcript kept in your Recordings.

Editing the transcript in Fictate™ afterward changes only your Recordings copy. It will never reach back into your manuscript. The reverse is true too — edits you make in your manuscript don't come back to Fictate™.

So once a passage is in your manuscript, treat the manuscript as the real one and edit it there. The transcript stays behind as your archive, exactly as first dictated.

Yes to both. To name a recording, open your Recordings, tap the ⋯ menu on any recording, and choose Rename — the new title saves instantly and syncs to all your devices. To organize, create folders (the folder icon at the top of your Recordings) and move recordings into them by book, project, or anything else — interviews, notes, brainstorms.

Your transcripts, dictionary, outlines, and settings are always safe in your account — they come right back when you sign in again. Audio is the one thing to check first. Recording audio backs up to your account in the background, but a recording made moments ago may not have uploaded yet, and audio that hasn't backed up lives only inside the app on that phone. Before deleting the app, open your Recordings screen once while connected to the internet — that uploads anything still waiting. Then it's safe to delete and reinstall.

Yes. Tap Select in the Recordings header, choose the recordings you want, then tap Merge. Three ten-minute sessions across a day become one continuous transcript.

Yes. Open the menu and tap Upload Audio. On a computer you can also drag the file straight onto the home screen. Recorded a scene on a voice recorder or your phone's memo app? Bring the file in and Fictate™ transcribes it like anything else, custom dictionary and all.

Same login, nothing to redo. Download Fictate™ from the App Store or Google Play, or open app.fictateapp.com, and sign in with the email you used during the beta. Every recording, transcript, and dictionary word is right where you left it. The only thing that's new is the plan: start your free trial under Account & Settings → View Plans.

Your transcripts, recordings, dictionary, outlines, and settings are stored securely in your Fictate™ account (in the cloud) and sync automatically across every device where you're signed in. Your audio recordings sync too: they're encrypted in transit and backed up to your private cloud storage, so they're available on any device where you're signed in. Audio is kept for 90 days on every plan; your transcript text — the part you need for your manuscript — is kept for as long as your account exists.

Your transcripts and metadata sync automatically — open the Recordings screen to trigger the initial sync. Your audio recordings sync too and will download to a new device the first time you open them, as long as they're still within the 90-day audio-retention window. All of your transcript text is always available.

Your transcript text is kept for as long as your account exists, on every plan — it never expires. Audio recordings are kept for 90 days, also on every plan. After that the audio file is removed and your transcript stays exactly where it is. If you want to keep the audio itself, you can download it any time within those 90 days from the recording's screen.

A Fictate™ account is for one author. Please don't share your login, or your account's monthly allowance, with anyone else — including co-writers, assistants, or writing group members. Each author needs their own account. We may suspend accounts showing use consistent with sharing.

No. Your words are never used to train AI models. Every request we send to Deepgram is marked to opt out of their model-improvement program, and they keep the audio only as long as it takes to process it. Under OpenAI's and Anthropic's API terms, content sent through their APIs is likewise not used to train their models. Your book stays your book.

No. We do not read your recordings or your transcripts. Access to your content is restricted to what is technically required to run the service, and your data is encrypted in transit and at rest, stored in private cloud storage tied to your account.

You do. Every right to everything you speak into Fictate™ remains yours. Nothing you dictate is ever sold, traded, or handed to anyone else for their own purposes.

To turn your recording into text, your audio is sent securely to one of our speech-to-text providers, Deepgram or OpenAI. Dictation in any language other than English is always transcribed by OpenAI. If you use the ✦ Cleanup Tool, your transcript text is sent securely to Anthropic to correct punctuation, capitalization, and obvious transcription errors. Those providers process your content only to hand the result back to you. They do not keep it, and they do not learn from it.

Yes. Account & Settings has a "Turn off AI features" switch that disables the Cleanup Tool entirely. Transcription keeps working, because it is a different kind of AI. Speech-to-text is recognition AI: it listens and writes down the words you actually said. It does not compose anything. The sentences are yours. The ✦ Cleanup Tool is generative AI, and that is exactly why it carries the sparkle and why you can switch it off. Even switched on it is held to tidying punctuation, verbal stumbles, and dialogue marks, never rewriting your sentences. The ✦ sparkle marks every feature that uses generative AI, so you always know which is which. Nothing marked with it is ever required to use Fictate™.

Your dictated words are yours. Fictate™ transcription simply writes down what you spoke — it isn't AI-generated content, and none of the transcription engines watermark text. The optional Cleanup Tool ✦ runs on models that carry no watermark, so nothing Fictate™ produces is marked — your transcripts and your cleaned-up chapters both come out watermark-free. The EU law itself exempts grammar-and-formatting help on your own writing, which is exactly what the Cleanup Tool does.

Fictate™ Anywhere isn't a keyboard. A keyboard sits between your fingers and the screen: everything you type, including passwords and card numbers, passes through it. Fictate™ Anywhere is never in that path. Nothing you type ever flows through it. It does exactly one thing: when you tap the hotkey, it records your voice; when you tap again, it transcribes your words and pastes them into your document, the same way Paste in the Edit menu does. Between taps it isn't listening, and it doesn't read what's on your screen. The permission macOS asks for (Accessibility) is what allows Fictate™ to paste your words into your writing app — macOS shows that warning for any app that can type on your behalf, which is precisely what a dictation tool must do. On iPhone, Fictate™ does include an optional keyboard — that's how Fictate™ Anywhere works there. The microphone and the recording live in the Fictate™ app itself. You start dictation in the app; the keyboard's only job is to receive your finished words and type them into whatever app you're writing in. Apple forbids every keyboard from using the microphone, so the mic is in the app and the typing is in the keyboard — never both in one place. The keyboard cannot listen to anything. Two more facts worth knowing. The "Allow Full Access" permission it requests exists solely so the keyboard can receive your dictated text from the Fictate™ app — Apple shows the same strongly-worded warning for every keyboard that requests that setting, and Fictate's keyboard makes no network connections of its own. And most reassuring of all: iOS never allows any custom keyboard on a password field — your phone switches back to the Apple keyboard automatically. Your recordings and words are handled the same way as in the Fictate™ app: never used to train AI models. Full details at fictateapp.com/privacy.

Yes, both, at any time. Delete individual recordings from your library whenever you like. To remove your account and everything in it, use Account & Settings → Delete Account, or the account deletion page.

The whole thing is here: fictateapp.com/privacy. It covers exactly what we collect, who processes it, how long it is kept, and your rights over it.

Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and nothing is charged until it ends. Choose your plan under Account & Settings → View Plans to start it. There's no separate free tier after that, because every recording is transcribed in the cloud and each one costs something to run.

Every plan starts with 7 days free. Annual works out cheaper per month: Storyteller · $5.00/month billed annually at $59.99, or $5.99 month to month. At least 15,000 words a month — or your full 5 hours of dictation, whichever gives you more — plus custom dictionary, verbal commands, offline recording, and every feature including the ✦ Cleanup Tool. Author · $15.00/month billed annually at $179.99, or $19.99 month to month. At least 50,000 words a month — or your full 20 hours, whichever gives you more — plus everything in Storyteller. Fictator · $35.00/month billed annually at $419.99, or $44.99 month to month. Unlimited dictation for one author, plus everything in Author. Full comparison at fictateapp.com/#pricing.

Yes — using your phone's own voice control, which can tap buttons for you hands-free.

iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Voice Control, and switch it on. Then simply say “Tap Pause” while Fictate™ is recording, and “Tap Resume” to carry on.

Android: Settings → Accessibility → Voice Access. Once it's on, you can speak the name of a button to tap it.

This is a feature of your phone rather than of Fictate™, so it works across your other apps too. It's especially worth setting up if you dictate in the car or on a walk, since pausing keeps quiet thinking time out of your recordings entirely.

That's entirely up to you. Fictate™ isn't your writing software — your manuscript lives in Scrivener, Word, Google Docs, Atticus, or wherever you write. Fictate™ is where your words are captured and turned into text, and once you've moved them across, the job is done.

Some authors clear finished recordings to keep the list tidy. Others keep everything, because the original audio is a record of exactly what they said. Nothing breaks either way, and there's no storage limit to manage. Your recordings are kept for 90 days on every plan; your transcripts stay as long as your account does.

No. When you tap Pause, the recorder genuinely stops — nothing is captured and the timer halts — so paused time never lands in your recording and is never counted. Pause freely to think, take a drink, or answer the door.

Your words can never be charged for silence — only the words you actually speak count toward your word guarantee. The hours side of your plan measures the recording's length, including silence you leave inside it — so the pause button keeps your hours where they belong. And since your plan gives you words AND hours, whichever gives you more, a thoughtful pace never costs you your month.

Only what Fictate™ transcribes for you: your dictation sessions — scenes, outlines, notes, all of it — and any audio files you upload for transcription.

Nothing else touches your word count. Running the ✦ Cleanup Tool doesn't. Editing your transcripts doesn't. Adding words to your Custom Dictionary doesn't, and neither does pasting your manuscript into Teach Fictate™ Your Words. Retrying the same recording doesn't charge twice. Your words are counted once, when they're first transcribed — everything you do with them after that is free.

Your words and hours reset each month on your billing day and don't roll over, and there's no add-on pack. Remember, you're never out until you've used both your full word guarantee and your full hours — whichever gives you more. If you find yourself genuinely running short, moving up a tier is the way to get more.

Yes. Upgrading to a higher tier takes effect immediately, and the App Store, Google Play, or Paddle (for browser subscriptions) credits you for the unused portion of your current plan — annual included. You're never charged twice for the same days. Change your plan in Fictate™ under Account & Settings, on your phone or in your browser.

No. Fictate™ Anywhere is included in every plan at no additional cost, along with the web app at app.fictateapp.com. One subscription covers all of it — your phone, your browser, and your Mac. Sign in with the same account on each and everything syncs between them.

Plan changes happen in Fictate™ under Account & Settings — in the app on your phone if you subscribed through the App Store or Google Play: open Account & Settings → Manage Subscription and choose the plan you want. If you subscribed in your browser, open Account & Settings at app.fictateapp.com and tap Change Plan. Upgrading to a higher tier takes effect right away, and the store automatically credits you for the unused time on your old plan — you never pay twice for the same days. Moving to a lower tier, or switching between monthly and annual on the same tier, takes effect at your next renewal date, so you keep everything you've already paid for until then. Your plan change reaches all your devices — phone, web, and Mac — within a few minutes.

Right in your browser — no phone needed. Create your account at app.fictateapp.com, tap the big record button, choose See Plans, and pick your plan. Secure checkout is handled by Paddle (card, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay) in your local currency, and every plan starts with 7 days free. From then on, write wherever you like — the browser, the phone app, or Fictate™ Anywhere on your Mac — all on the same account.

Yes — two steps, in this order, so you're never billed twice. 1. First, cancel the phone subscription. On iPhone: Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Fictate™ → Cancel. On Android: Google Play → your profile picture → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions → Fictate™ → Cancel. Your plan stays fully active until the end of the period you've already paid for; cancelling only stops the next charge. 2. Then, on or after the day that period ends, sign in at app.fictateapp.com, tap the big record button, choose See Plans, and pick your plan. Checkout is handled by Paddle in your browser. It's all one account, so your recordings, dictionary, and settings carry straight over, and your phone sees the new plan within a few minutes. The same two steps work in reverse if you'd rather move from the browser to a store.

Yes. Moving up to a bigger plan takes effect right away, and the store credits the unused part of your current plan. Moving down, or switching from annual to monthly, takes effect at your next renewal, so you keep what you've paid for until then. Switching from monthly to annual counts as moving up. On your phone, change plans in the app: tap the big record button, then See Plans. If you subscribed in your browser, open Account & Settings at app.fictateapp.com and tap Change Plan.

Yes, from a separate device or speaker. Playing music through the same earbuds you're dictating with switches the earbuds into phone-call mode, which lowers the microphone quality and your transcript with it. Keep the music on another device and your earbuds for Fictate™ only.

You keep your account and everything in it. Sign in anytime to read, copy, download, or email every transcript you've ever made — your words are yours, and transcripts never expire. What pauses is the ability to make new recordings and transcriptions. Resubscribe whenever you're ready and you pick up exactly where you left off, with everything still there.

It's a browser app, no download required. Open it in Chrome, Edge, or Safari on any desktop or laptop. Some privacy-focused browsers (Arc, for example) can silently block microphone access, so if the recording meter doesn't move while you speak, switch to Chrome or Edge.

Yes. Fictate™ keeps recording while you look at your outline in another tab, read a document, or switch over to Word or Scrivener — on your computer and on your phone. Just leave the Fictate™ tab open rather than closing it, and keep an eye on the recording timer when you come back. If your screen locks or your browser is closed entirely, the recording stops and whatever you dictated up to that point is saved.