# Retype a recent dictation

Type one of your recent dictations at the cursor again, without saying it a second time.

Text landing in the wrong window is the most common way a good dictation goes to waste. Retype
is the fix: it types one of your recent dictations at the cursor, so you can put the words where
they were meant to go without saying them again.

## Using it

1. Click into the window you want the text in.
2. Press **Retype** on the pill.
3. Pick one of your three most recent dictations from the list.

The text is typed at the cursor, the same way a normal dictation is typed. The list also has an
**Open history…** row, which opens the History window if you want to find something older or
copy it instead.

Retype is only available while Blabb is idle. During a dictation all four pill buttons are replaced
by a single **Stop**.

## When it earns its keep

- **The focus was wrong.** You pressed the shortcut, spoke, and the words went into the browser
  behind your email. Click into the right box and retype it.
- **You need the same sentence twice.** The same paragraph into a second ticket, a repeated
  address, a standard line you say often.
- **The app swallowed it.** Some apps drop typed input. Retype gives you a second attempt after
  changing the text entry method for that app.

The list is your recent dictations, so what appears there follows what you keep in
[history](/docs/get-started/history/).

> [!NOTE]
> Retype types the final text — the cleaned-up version that was entered originally. It does not
> run cleanup again, so the wording is exactly what you saw the first time.

## If retyping also produces nothing

The problem is where the text is going, not the dictation. The usual causes are a target window
running as administrator, which Windows will not let Blabb type into, and a text entry method
that particular app does not accept. Both are covered in
[Nothing gets typed](/docs/common-issues/nothing-gets-typed/).

## See also

- [The overlay pill](/docs/get-started/the-pill/) — the rest of the buttons.
- [Text entry methods](/docs/configuration/text-entry-methods/) — how text is placed, and what to change when an app refuses it.