WhatsApp Voice Message to Text: Transcribe or Translate a Voice Note

Try WhatsApp's own transcripts first

WhatsApp has added voice message transcripts that run on your device. When the feature is available in your app, you turn it on in the chat settings and choose a language, and a transcript option appears on voice notes. It's private and instant, but language support is limited and varies by phone and app version, and it transcribes in the message's language rather than translating. If the option isn't there, or the result is in a language you don't read, use the file route below.

Get the voice note off your phone

Voice notes are saved as audio files in the Opus codec, usually with an .opus extension. Ways to get one out:

• Share or forward. Long-press the voice note and look for a share or forward option that lets you save to files or send to yourself by email.
• Export the chat. In the chat's settings, Export chat with media produces an archive that includes every voice note as an audio file. Useful for many messages at once.
• On Android, voice notes are also stored in WhatsApp's media folders on the phone, which a file manager can reach.

Exact menus differ between iPhone and Android and change with app updates. The Opus audio codec explainer covers why WhatsApp uses Opus.

Convert the .opus file if needed

mydubly accepts MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, FLAC and WebM audio. For a .opus file, the free Opus to MP3 converter converts it in your browser without uploading it anywhere. Renaming .opus to .ogg sometimes works too, since Opus often sits in an Ogg container, but converting is the reliable route.

Transcribe or translate with mydubly

1. Open audio to text and add the MP3 or OGG.
2. Choose the language spoken in the voice note to get a transcript, or another language to get it translated.
3. Read or download the plain transcript, the timestamped one, or subtitles.

Voice notes are short, and the minimum charge is 5 credits (half a cent) per file; a 9-minute rambling voice note costs 9 credits. You get 100 free credits when you sign in with Google. Translations into 21 languages come from the same run.

Privacy: other people's messages

A voice note is someone else's voice and words. Transcribing a message sent to you for your own understanding is ordinary, but sharing the transcript, or the audio, is another matter. Keep transcripts as private as the messages. With mydubly, the audio is sent over HTTPS and deleted with the results within 30 minutes of delivery, and nothing is used to train models. Cloud speech processing privacy lists questions to ask any service.

Accuracy with voice notes

Voice notes are recorded on phone microphones, often outdoors, in cars or while walking. That brings wind, traffic and distance from the microphone, all of which affect accuracy. Recording audio on a phone for transcription has tips you can share with people who send you important voice notes. Mixed-language speech, common in voice notes (Hindi with English words, for example), can come out inconsistent; translating mixed-language videos explains why.

Limits

• No speaker labels, though voice notes usually have one speaker.
• Very noisy or very quiet voice notes may give gaps or errors; transcribing quiet audio covers what helps.
• Each run returns one target language.
• The voice memo to text page covers your own recordings from voice recorder apps, which follow the same steps.

Many voice notes at once

If you need a whole conversation's worth of voice notes, for a record of a business agreement or a family archive, export the chat with media once rather than saving notes one by one. The archive's file names include the date and time, which keeps them in order. Convert them in a batch, transcribe each, and paste the transcripts into one document under their dates. For a long-running chat with a supplier or client, this gives you a searchable record you can quote later. Organizing an audio archive covers naming and storage if the collection grows.

Voice notes from older phones and other apps

Other messaging apps and older phones save voice messages in other formats: .amr from old phone recorders, .3gp from some Android apps, .m4a from iPhones. The free in-browser converters for AMR and 3GP handle the first two; M4A uploads directly. Once you have an MP3 or M4A, the transcription steps are identical.