How does automatic audio transcription work?
Transcribing an hour of audio by hand can take four or five hours of work. With this tool, Whisper does it for you: OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition model, trained on hundreds of thousands of hours of audio in almost a hundred languages. It recognizes accents, different voices and technical vocabulary, and writes the text with capitalization and punctuation.
It works with any audio file (MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, OPUS, FLAC) and with videos too: it extracts the audio automatically. You’ll see the text appear live as it transcribes. When it’s done, the result is organized into paragraphs based on pauses in speech, and you can add [m:ss] timestamps to find each part in the recording.
You can copy the text in one click or download it as TXT, or as SRT or VTT subtitles. If the audio is in another language, Whisper can give you the transcript translated into English.
Everything is processed in your browser: the recording is never uploaded to a server, which matters for interviews, work meetings or private consultations. The free trial lets you transcribe one file; with ToolStudio Pro you get unlimited use and can transcribe many files at once and download them in a ZIP.
How to transcribe audio to text
- Drag in your audio or video file or click to choose it.
- Leave the language on “Detect automatically” or pick it, and choose the accuracy.
- Click “Transcribe”. The first time, the AI model is downloaded; after that it stays saved in your browser.
- Read the transcript and turn on timestamps if you need them.
- Copy the text or download it as TXT, SRT or VTT.
What can you transcribe?
- Interviews for articles, research papers or a thesis.
- Meetings, calls and lectures so you have written notes.
- WhatsApp or phone voice notes you’d rather read.
- Podcast episodes to publish as text on your website and improve SEO.
- YouTube videos or courses to pull out quotes or summaries.
- Dictation: speak instead of typing and get text ready to edit.
Supported formats
- Input: MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV videos, and MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, OPUS and FLAC audio. Up to 2 GB per file.
- Output: SRT and WebVTT (VTT) subtitles and plain TXT text, with or without timestamps.
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, Basque and almost a hundred more, with automatic detection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I transcribe a WhatsApp voice note?
Yes. Save or share the voice note as a file (usually .opus or .ogg) and upload it here. It’s transcribed just like any other audio.
Does it tell different speakers apart?
It doesn’t identify each speaker, but it splits the text into paragraphs based on pauses, and the timestamps make it easy to find each part of the conversation in the recording.
How long does transcription take?
It depends on the length, the accuracy you choose and your device. On a computer with a graphics card running Chrome or Edge, it’s several times faster than on devices without graphics acceleration, and you’ll see the text appear as it goes. The first time, the model also has to be downloaded.
What languages does it support?
Almost a hundred languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician and Basque, with automatic detection.
Is my audio uploaded to a server?
No. The AI (Whisper, OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition model) is downloaded to your browser and runs on your own device. Your audio is never sent to a server; the only thing downloaded from the internet is the model, and only once.
Is it free?
You get one free try per tool: one file. You can reprocess that same file with different settings as many times as you like, and if something fails, your free try isn’t used up. To process new files you need ToolStudio Pro, which gives you unlimited use of every tool, batch processing (several files at once, downloaded together in a ZIP) and no ads. You can cancel anytime.
