History: find, pin and export a past dictation
The paragraph you dictated into a form that then lost it is not gone. Open Settings ▸ Dictation ▸ History: every dictation is there, newest first, with a search field above it and a button that puts it back where your cursor is.
How do I find the one I need?
Type into Search transcriptions. It matches any part of the text, ignoring case, and it searches what was inserted - after cleanup and your custom replacements - so search for the spelling you would expect to see on the page.
Each row shows three lines of the text and a quiet line under it: how long ago, how many words, how long you spoke and which speech model heard it. The list pages in 25s.
How do I get it back into an app?
Every row has four buttons. Insert hides Dictera and types the text into the app you were in, fitted to the caret the same way a live dictation is. Copy puts it on the clipboard. The pin keeps it, and the bin deletes it.
If a row says Cleaned, cleanup or a spoken command changed what the speech model heard. A fifth button, the chevron, opens the original underneath, which is the quickest way to see what the second model did to a sentence.
What does pinning do?
A pinned dictation moves to its own Pinned section at the top of the pane, above the search results. It also stops ageing: the retention setting and the 500-entry cap only ever remove unpinned rows. Pin the address you dictate every week, and it stays when the rest of the month goes.
How long is history kept?
Keep Transcriptions For offers 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days or forever; 30 days is the default. Shortening it prunes at once. Switch Save Transcription History off and new dictations are not written at all, while the ones already saved stay until you clear them.
Export… saves everything in the list as one plain-text file: date, model and text for each dictation. It ignores the search field, and it leaves out the pre-cleanup originals.
Where does it live?
In one file, history.json, in Dictera's Application Support folder on this Mac. It is not sent anywhere; the security page lists every file the app writes, and the features page lists History alongside the dictation statistics. Clear All deletes the lot after asking once.
History is not the notch's Clipboard page. That one keeps what you copy rather than what you dictate, and only once you switch on Keep a Clipboard History in Settings ▸ Notch.
