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How to Enable Siri on MacOS Sierra?

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macos enable turn on use siri mac os x macbook imac

Well, I asked Siri on my Mac how you can enable Siri on your computer, and unfortunately she didn’t have much to say other than “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.” 🙂

More seriously, you do definitely need to be running the very latest version of Mac OS X, now known as simply macOS. You can check by going to About This Mac from the Apple Menu on the top left. It’ll explicitly say if you’re running Sierra, but you can also tell by the operating system version number: 10.12.x is Sierra.

Now, once you have confirmed you have the right version of macOS, go back to the Apple Menu and choose “System Preferences…” then look for a new preference roughly in the middle of the window called…. ta daaa! Siri.

Look for the weird voice wave icon:

siri in system preferences macos

Click on it to open up the Siri System Preferences pane:

siri system preference macos x

The most important control is on the left side: Check the box adjacent to “Enable Siri“. Now it’s running!

Double check that the Mic input is a valid choice or device on your system, and that the language and voice are to your liking. I happen to like the Australian female voice (try it!) with Siri and have the same setting on my iPhone too.

The question then becomes how do you get to it? I suggest as a first step that you check on “Show Siri in menu bar” near the bottom of the window. A tiny Siri icon then shows up on the top menu bar:

siri icon on menu bar macos

It’s definitely subtle!

Before you close the window, however, I suggest that you look at your options for keyboard shortcut and pick one (or set your own custom shortcut):

macos siri keyboard shortcut

I’ve opted for Fn + Space. Easy enough.

Whether you click the Siri icon on the menu bar or use your newly set keyboard shortcut, however, launch Siri and she’ll dutifully sit and listen for your request:

macos siri ready to go listening

Alright, let’s find out! “Who won the world series?”

siri ask who won world series

That’s spot on, Siri. Pretty good for an Aussie voice system AI. Still, though, Siri can’t know everything:

ask siri how to disable siri

So there ya go. And a handy tip: launch Siri then don’t say anything. After a moment or two it’ll prompt you with some of the things it can do in the macOS universe, very helpful!

The post How to Enable Siri on MacOS Sierra? appeared first on Ask Dave Taylor.


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