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Vox has three buttons you can configure, and each one recognises three gestures: a press, a double press, and a hold.

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The buttons

The black button is not in this list. It belongs to the device rather than the app, so Vox shows it read-only. See Understanding the black button.

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Changing what a gesture does

1

Open Buttons

Open Vox and select Buttons in the left sidebar on Mac or the bottom tab bar on iPhone.
2

Pick a button and a gesture

Each button card has a row for Press, Double press, and Hold.
3

Choose an action

On Mac, a gesture can be set to one of:
  • Start / stop dictation or Start / stop note
  • Add to last note or Cancel capture
  • Keyboard shortcut of your choosing
  • Voice command or Edit text on a hold
  • Media controls such as play/pause, next track, volume, and mute
On iPhone and iPad, gestures can use Start / stop note, Add to last note, Record to pinned notes, Cancel capture, or Switch language. Start / stop dictation types into any app once Button dictation is on in Settings → Dictation; turn off Auto-Correction in iOS Settings → General → Keyboard first, or iOS may change your words. iOS does not offer keyboard shortcuts, media controls, voice commands, or edit-text actions.
4

Record the shortcut

On Mac, if you chose a keyboard shortcut, click the shortcut field and press the key combination you want the button to send.
Changes apply immediately. There is no save step.

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What a keyboard shortcut actually does

Vox sends the key combination to whatever app is in the foreground, exactly as if you had pressed those keys yourself. That means it works with anything that has a keyboard shortcut, including apps that know nothing about Vox. Some combinations worth stealing:
If you want the same button to do different things in different apps, you do not need a second button. See App-specific profiles.

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Press and double press interact

When a gesture is assigned to double press, Vox has to wait a moment after the first press to see whether a second one is coming. That delay is short, but it is real. If you never use double press on a given button, leaving it unassigned makes the single press feel instant. Vox uses a 0.3-second window to detect a double press.

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Older devices with one button

Some earlier units report a single unlabelled button. Vox treats that as the white button, so the white button row is the one to configure.