Enable the VoiceBee keyboard.

You downloaded VoiceBee, opened it, maybe signed up — and then hit a wall. iOS keyboards live four screens deep inside Settings and almost nobody finishes the setup on the first try. That is not your fault. Here is the short version.

The four taps

1. Open iPhone Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
2. Tap Add New Keyboard…, scroll to VoiceBee, and pick it.
3. Tap VoiceBee once more in the list and flip on Allow Full Access.
4. In any app with a text field, long-press the 🌐 globe key, choose VoiceBee, and tap the microphone.

That is it. The next time you open any app, VoiceBee is in your keyboard picker waiting.

“Allow Full Access” — what it actually means

The iOS dialog reads scary on purpose. It is a warning Apple shows for every custom keyboard ever made, not for VoiceBee specifically. Here is exactly what the permission does and does not do:

• It allows the keyboard extension to talk to the main VoiceBee app that is already on your iPhone. That is how your voice gets to the speech-to-text engine and the text comes back.
• It does not give us access to your keystrokes. We never see what you type. The keyboard extension does not log, store, or transmit typed text.
• It does not let the keyboard connect to the internet on its own. All cloud communication is funneled through the main VoiceBee app using the secure session on your device.
• You can turn it off at any time from the same Settings screen. No data leaves your phone while the toggle is off.

The full list of what VoiceBee sees, stores, and sends is written out in the Privacy Policy. We built VoiceBee in Greece under GDPR and we would rather be boring about privacy than clever about features.

Something not matching?

Apple moves the Keyboard menu around between iOS versions. If you are on iOS 17 or 18 and the Settings path looks slightly different, search for “Keyboard” from the top of Settings — you will land in the same place. Everything else about the flow is the same.

If a step still does not match, reply to the email that brought you here or write to hello@bytebee.gr. A human reads every message and replies within a day.

After you are set up

Your first dictation does not need to be long. Try a two-sentence reply in iMessage, a search query in Safari, a note in Apple Notes. You will feel the difference in the first sentence.

VoiceBee is free for the first 4,500 words per week with no card needed. If you want unlimited transcription, AI rewriting, voice snippets and the other Pro features, open the VoiceBee container app on your iPhone and tap Upgrade — billing runs through the App Store so Apple handles every payment.