Allow microphone access

Dictation records audio in your browser, so the browser must have permission to use your microphone. The permission is granted by you, per site, and POM AI cannot request it on your behalf beyond triggering the prompt.

The first time

Select Dictate prompt. The browser shows its own permission dialog asking whether this site may use your microphone. Choose to allow it.

The permission is remembered for the site, so you are asked once rather than on every recording. It applies to the whole WordPress site, not to individual screens.

If you blocked it by mistake

Once blocked, the browser stops asking and POM AI reports:

Microphone access was blocked. Please enable it to dictate your prompt.

Clearing that requires changing the site permission yourself.

Chrome and Edge. Select the icon at the left of the address bar, find Microphone, set it to allow, then reload the page.

Firefox. Select the permissions icon in the address bar, remove the blocked microphone entry, then reload and try again.

Safari. Open Safari → Settings → Websites → Microphone, find the site in the list and set it to Allow.

A reload is needed in every case: the page checks the permission when you press the button, and a page loaded while blocked keeps that state.

HTTPS is required

Browsers only grant microphone access on secure origins. A site served over plain HTTP will not be able to record, and depending on the browser the control will either report that recording is unsupported or fail silently when you press it.

localhost is treated as secure by browsers, so local development works. A staging site on plain HTTP does not.

If dictation works on one site and not another, compare the protocol first.

When the browser cannot record at all

If audio recording is not available, the status line says:

Audio recording is not supported in this browser.

Causes, in rough order of likelihood:

• the page is not on a secure origin;
• the browser is old, or a niche build without media recording;
• an enterprise policy or extension disables microphone access;
• the browser is running in a mode that blocks media capture.

The surrounding tool is unaffected. Type the prompt instead.

No microphone, or the wrong one

Permission is not the same as hardware. If the browser has permission but no usable input device, recording starts and captures nothing, and POM AI reports:

No audio was captured. Try recording again.

Check:

• a microphone is connected and not muted, including a physical mute switch on a headset;
• the correct input device is selected in your operating system's sound settings;
• no other application has exclusive use of the device — video-conferencing software is the usual culprit;
• the level indicator next to the button animates when you speak. If it does not move, the browser is not receiving audio.

That last check is the fastest diagnosis available: it separates a hardware or routing problem from a transcription problem.

Shared and managed computers

On a managed device, microphone access may be controlled by policy and not changeable from the browser settings. Ask whoever administers the machine.

On a shared computer, remember that the permission is granted to the site for that browser profile, not to you personally. Anyone using the same profile can dictate.

Revoking access

To stop dictation being usable, remove the microphone permission for the site in your browser settings. POM AI keeps no separate record of the permission and does not need to be reconfigured.

Removing the permission does not disable the tool or the button; it only means the next attempt will report that access was blocked.

Privacy

The browser records only while you are actively recording, between pressing start and stopping. The level indicator animating is the visible signal that capture is happening.

What happens to the recording after that is covered in Audio privacy.