Install the App and Turn On Voice Mode
Install the app on your phone.
The phone app is where you'll often use Claude — the carpool line, the grocery store, naptime, the pharmacy pickup window. Get it on your phone now and the rest of the course just works wherever you are.
On your phone, open the App Store (iPhone) or the Play Store (Android) and search Claude. Install the one made by Anthropic — the icon is an orange asterisk-looking shape on a cream background. Open it and sign in with the same method you used on your computer (Google, Apple, or email). Same method = same account = same chat history on both devices. If you accidentally pick a different one you'll create a second account with no chats in it — sign out and pick the right method.
When the app asks for permissions
- Notifications — tap Don't Allow unless you actually want them. Less buzzing on your phone.
- Microphone — when it asks (this happens the first time you tap voice mode in the next screen), tap Allow. Voice mode won't work without it.
Once you're signed in, send a quick message to confirm it's working:
If you see Claude reply, you're all set. Your chats sync automatically between your phone and your computer — the conversation you started in the signup walkthrough will also be visible here.
What voice mode actually is.
Voice mode lets you talk to Claude out loud and hear it talk back. No typing. Hands-free. Like a phone call with a smart friend.
It's what makes AI useful when your hands are full, because you can use it while you're doing something else:
When voice mode earns its keep
- Driving — brainstorm dinner on the way home
- Cooking — ask for a substitution with your hands in raw chicken
- Folding laundry — brain-dump your week into a to-do list
- Walking the dog — think through a hard conversation out loud
- Nursing or rocking a baby — plan birthday party logistics
- Waiting in a pickup line — draft an email reply by talking
Turn it on.
Voice mode lives inside the Claude app on your phone. Pick up your phone and follow along.
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Open the Claude app
Tap the orange icon.
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Start a new chat
Look for the pencil-and-paper icon (usually top-right) or tap "New chat." A blank message box appears.
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Tap the wavy-lines icon — not the microphone
Near the text box you'll see two voice icons sitting next to each other. The plain microphone is dictation (speech-to-text — it types out what you say, and Claude replies in text, with a play button you can tap if you want to hear that reply out loud). That's not what we want here. Tap the one next to it that looks like wavy lines, or a speech bubble with wavy lines — that's voice conversation mode, the full phone-call experience where Claude talks back to you automatically.
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Grant microphone permission
The first time, your phone will ask if Claude can use your microphone. Tap Allow. (This is required for voice mode to work.)
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You're in voice mode
You'll see a full-screen view, usually with a pulsing circle or glowing orb. That means Claude is listening.
Your first voice conversation.
Just talk. You don't have to sound formal. You can pause, say "uh," restart a sentence — Claude will keep up. Say this exact thing out loud:
Claude will answer out loud. When it's done talking, it'll listen again. You can follow up naturally:
When you're done — and how to find it later
Tap the "stop" button on the voice screen. Don't tap it until the conversation is done. Claude saves every voice conversation automatically as a regular chat — you don't have to do anything. The full text transcript of what you both said sits right there, scrollable like any other chat.
Those chats show up everywhere you're signed in. Open the Claude app on your phone, or go to claude.ai in a browser on your computer, and you'll see your voice conversation in the same chat list as your typed ones. Same account, same history, both places. Handy when you had a great voice brainstorm while folding laundry and want to copy the output into a doc later at your desk.
You're set up.
Last lesson of the setup arc: three conversations worth keeping. The prompts moms actually use every week.
Continue to First Conversations →