[FEATURE] Keyboard shortcut for microphone in main chat window (Claude Desktop macOS)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Preface: this feature has already been requested twice and incorrectly rejected by a bot.

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/48305 : it was incorrectly rejected by a bot as not being about Claude Code. But it is about Claude Code, because Claude Code is part of Claude Desktop, and this is about dictating to Claude Code within Claude Desktop.

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/59400 : it was correctly marked as a duplicate of https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/48305 but the fact that the prior issue had been closed means it was not seen.

So this rest of this feature request is simply repeating the text in https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/59400 but with the explicit request to not close because it "doesn't appear to be about Claude Code". The original feature request even said "If a more appropriate venue exists, please redirect.", but the bot did not suggest a more appropriate venue. So this absolutely needs to be seen by a human, because the bot appears to be classifying it incorrectly without even giving a human a chance to decide if it needs to go elsewhere.

Problem Statement

The voice dictation feature works perfectly via the microphone icon in the Claude Code desktop app UI, but there is no keyboard shortcut to trigger it. Users must reach for the mouse every single time they want to dictate, which defeats the productivity benefit of voice input.

The /voice slash command returns /voice isn't available in this environment. in the desktop app, and a voice:pushToTalk binding in ~/.claude/keybindings.json has no effect (the keybindings file seems to apply to the CLI only). The desktop app's Settings panel exposes only Ctrl+Alt+Space for quick chat — nothing for voice.

Environment: Claude Code Desktop on Windows 10 Pro, version 2.1.86, authenticated with claude.ai account.

Proposed Solution

Add a configurable keyboard shortcut in the desktop app that triggers the same action as clicking the microphone icon.

Ideal user experience:

• Press a configurable hotkey (e.g. Ctrl+Space) while the chat input has focus → voice dictation starts (push-to-talk or toggle, matching the current /voice mode semantics).
• Release the hotkey (in push-to-talk mode) → dictation stops and the transcribed text is inserted into the input.
• The shortcut should be exposed both in the desktop app's Settings UI and in ~/.claude/keybindings.json (action name voice:pushToTalk), so it stays consistent with the CLI binding system.
• Sensible default: Ctrl+Space (or another non-conflicting combo), with the user free to remap.

Alternative Solutions

• Windows native dictation (Win+H): works but uses the Windows speech engine, not Claude's transcription. Quality and integration are inferior for a Claude Code workflow.
• AutoHotkey script simulating a mouse click at the microphone icon's screen coordinates: fragile — breaks if the window is moved, resized, or if the UI layout changes. Not a viable long-term workaround.
• Configuring "ctrl+space": "voice:pushToTalk" in ~/.claude/keybindings.json: has no effect in the desktop app (binding silently ignored).

Currently I work around this by clicking the microphone icon manually with the mouse for every dictation, which is exactly the friction this feature should eliminate.

Priority

High - Significant impact on productivity

Feature Category

Claude Desktop

Use Case Example

_No response_

Additional Context

_No response_