Map shortcuts to your buttons

Assign a press or a double press on the white, red, and grey buttons.

Vox has three buttons you can configure, and each one recognises three gestures: a press, a double press, and a hold.

The buttons

Button	Default press	Default double press	Default hold
White	Start and stop dictation	Enter	Unassigned
Red	Escape	Switch apps (⌘Tab)	Unassigned
Grey	Unassigned	Unassigned	Voice command

The black button is not in this list. It belongs to the device rather than the app, so Vox shows it read-only. See Understanding the black button.

Changing what a gesture does

1. Open the Buttons tab

   Open Vox and select Buttons at the top of the window.

2. Pick a button and a gesture

   Each button card has a row for Press and a row for Double press.

3. Choose an action

   Every gesture can be set to one of:

   • Start and stop dictation or Start and stop note
   • Add to last note or Cancel dictation
   • A keyboard shortcut of your choosing
   • Voice command or Edit text on a hold
   • Media controls such as play/pause, next track, volume, and mute
4. Record the shortcut

   If you chose a keyboard shortcut, click the shortcut field and press the key combination you want the button to send.

Changes apply immediately. There is no save step.

What a keyboard shortcut actually does

Vox sends the key combination to whatever app is in the foreground, exactly as if you had pressed those keys yourself. That means it works with anything that has a keyboard shortcut, including apps that know nothing about Vox.

Some combinations worth stealing:

You want	Set the shortcut to
Push to talk in a call app	Whatever that app uses, often Space or ⌘⇧A
Trigger Superwhisper	Its own hotkey, see Superwhisper
Trigger Wispr Flow	Its own hotkey, see Wispr Flow
Play and pause music	F8

If you want the same button to do different things in different apps, you do not need a second button. See App-specific profiles.

Press and double press interact

When a gesture is assigned to double press, Vox has to wait a moment after the first press to see whether a second one is coming. That delay is short, but it is real. If you never use double press on a given button, leaving it unassigned makes the single press feel instant.

Vox uses a 0.3-second window to detect a double press.

Older devices with one button

Some earlier units report a single unlabelled button. Vox treats that as the white button, so the white button row is the one to configure.