Use your voice with HoloLens

Use your voice to do many of the same things you do with gestures on HoloLens—even take a quick photo or open an app. And when you're using the holographic keyboard, try dictation mode for an easy way to type.

Get around HoloLens faster with these basic commands. To see more commands, check out Cortana on HoloLens, or just say "Hey Cortana, what can I say?"

Select. Use this instead of air tap. Gaze at a hologram, then say "Select."

Go to start. Say "Go to Start" anytime to bring up the Start menu. Or when you're in an immersive app, say "Go to Start" to get to the quick actions menu. 

Move this. Instead of air tapping and dragging an app, say "Move this" and use gaze to move it. 

Face me. Gaze at a hologram, and then say “Face me” to turn it your way.

Bigger/Smaller. Gaze at a hologram, and then say “Bigger” or “Smaller” to resize it.

Hey Cortana, restart. Restart your HoloLens. 

Hey Cortana, shut down. Turn off your HoloLens.

Hey Cortana, move <app name> here. Gaze at the spot you want the app to move to.

Hey Cortana, take a picture. Snap a quick photo—even in an immersive app.

Many buttons and other elements on HoloLens also respond to your voice—for example, Adjust and Close on the app bar. To find out if a button is voice-enabled, rest your gaze on it for a moment. If it is, you'll see a voice tip.

Tired of typing? Switch to dictation mode any time the holographic keyboard is active. Select the microphone to get started, or say "Start dictating." To stop dictating, select Done or say "Stop dictating." To delete what you just dictated, say "Delete that." 

HoloLens dictation uses explicit punctuation, meaning that you say the name of the punctuation you want to use. For instance, you might say "Hey comma what are you up to question mark."

Here are the punctuation keywords you can use:

• Period, comma, question mark, exclamation point/exclamation mark

• New line/new paragraph

• Semicolon, colon

• Open quote(s), close quote(s)

• Hashtag, smiley/smiley face, frowny, winky

• Dollar, percent

Sometimes it's helpful to spell out things like email addresses. For instance, to dictate example@outlook.com, you'd say "E X A M P L E at outlook dot com."