Free tool
Sermon transcription
Drop in a recorded service or talk for free sermon transcription: the message comes back as text with a time on every paragraph, ready to become study notes, a blog post, a newsletter or captions for the video.
- Free
- Captions for the video
- Nothing is stored
Drop your sermon recording here, or Choose your sermon recording
MP3, M4A, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG or WebM. Up to 30 minutes of each file, 3 free files a day. The language is detected automatically.
Transcribing every Sunday? NoteOwl transcribes whole services on your Mac with unlimited transcription, saves captions and keeps every sermon searchable.
How it works
How do you transcribe a sermon?
Start with a file that holds the sermon itself rather than the whole service, and drop it here. The converter transcribes it piece by piece and shows the text with times as it goes. Then save captions for the video, or a Word file to edit.
- 1
Get the recording
From the sound desk, from the livestream video or from a phone in the congregation. MP3, M4A, WAV and MP4 all work.
- 2
Start where the sermon starts
Only the first 30 minutes of each file are transcribed, so trim off the songs and notices before the message begins.
- 3
Save what you need
SRT or VTT captions for the video, Word for the blog, plain text for the newsletter.
Should you transcribe the whole service or just the sermon?
Just the sermon. Worship, readings and notices can fill the first 30 minutes on their own, and that’s all of a file that gets transcribed. Cut the recording down to the message first, and every transcribed minute is preaching.
- 1
On a Mac, open it in QuickTime Player
Choose Edit → Trim, drag the yellow handles to the start and end of the sermon, and click Trim.
- 2
Export just the sound
Choose File → Export As → Audio Only to save a small M4A of the sermon alone.
- 3
Recorded on an iPhone?
In Voice Memos, use Trim, then Save as New Recording, and export the new recording to Files.
Which sermon recording gives the cleanest transcript?
The recording from the sound desk. It takes the preacher’s microphone directly, without the room’s echo, the coughs or the children. A livestream’s soundtrack is usually that same feed; a phone in a pew hears the hall instead.
- Sound desk or mixer recording
- What to expectThe preacher close and clear: the best transcript
- Livestream video (MP4)
- What to expectUsually the desk feed; the converter keeps the sound and ignores the picture
- Sermon podcast MP3
- What to expectOften already trimmed to the message
- Phone in the congregation
- What to expectEcho, coughs and shuffling; sit near a loudspeaker
| Source | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Sound desk or mixer recording | The preacher close and clear: the best transcript |
| Livestream video (MP4) | Usually the desk feed; the converter keeps the sound and ignores the picture |
| Sermon podcast MP3 | Often already trimmed to the message |
| Phone in the congregation | Echo, coughs and shuffling; sit near a loudspeaker |
What happens to worship songs and Bible readings?
Readings are transcribed like any other speech, whoever reads them. Songs are different: music is sent just like speech, so a song can come back as its lyrics or as a stray line. Delete those paragraphs, or trim the songs off before you start.
Prayers and responses said by the whole congregation at once are the hardest part of a service to transcribe. Copy their wording from the order of service instead.
How are Bible references and names written?
As they were spoken. A reference read out as “John three sixteen” usually comes back with digits, but not always in the 3:16 form, so search for each book name and put the references in your church’s style as you edit.
Rarer names, such as Mephibosheth or Zerubbabel, are spelled the way they sounded. Check them against the passage, along with any Hebrew or Greek word the preacher explains.
What can a church do with a sermon transcript?
Give the message a life beyond Sunday. Turned from sermon to text, it becomes captions for the video, a blog post or newsletter article, questions for small groups, and an archive anyone can search for the week a topic came up.
Captions on the video
Download SRT or VTT. YouTube takes both, and captions let members who are deaf or hard of hearing follow along.
A blog post or newsletter
Tighten the spoken sentences, add a heading at each point, and quote the key line word for word.
Small-group studies
Turn the main points and passages into discussion questions for the week.
A one-page outline
Points, quotes and the questions the message raised, laid out like the presentation notes template.
A searchable archive
Text files of past sermons can be searched for a topic or a passage in seconds.
Want every Sunday’s sermon transcribed on your Mac?
NoteOwl transcribes whole services of any length on your Mac with unlimited transcription, so nothing needs trimming. It saves captions, writes notes from the talk with its Presentation template and keeps every sermon searchable. Nothing is uploaded.
FAQ
Questions about sermon transcription
Is this sermon transcription free?
Yes, with no account or sign-up. Transcribe 3 recordings a day, up to 30 minutes of each, and download captions, text or Word as often as you like.
Can I transcribe a sermon from our livestream?
Yes, once the video file is on your computer, wherever your team keeps the recording. Drop the MP4 on the converter: a current browser reads it a slice at a time, so a long service video works, and only its sound is used.
How long can the sermon be?
The first 30 minutes of each file are transcribed, and the page says so when a recording runs longer. Split a longer sermon into two parts, or use NoteOwl on a Mac, which transcribes recordings of any length.
Can it transcribe a sermon in Spanish, Korean or another language?
Yes. It picks up the language from the preaching itself, checking about every 30 seconds, so a sermon in Spanish, Korean or Portuguese comes back in that language. It writes what was said and doesn’t translate it.
Does it tell the preacher and the reader apart?
No. It writes one transcript with times and no names. A new paragraph starts after each longer pause, so a change of voice often falls at a paragraph break; add the names as you edit.
Is the sermon recording kept anywhere?
No. Short pieces of its sound go to a cloud AI transcription service, which transcribes and discards them, and NoteOwl stores neither the audio nor the text. Download the transcript before you close the page.
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Every sermon as text, privately on your Mac
Free to download. Runs entirely on your Mac.
macOS 26 or later · Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) · 16 GB memory minimum, 24 GB recommended
About NoteOwl
NoteOwl is private AI meeting notes and memory for the Mac. It captures meetings without a bot joining the call, labels every speaker, writes summaries and action items, and builds a memory of every conversation that you can chat with — fully offline, because the speech recognition and the AI run on the Mac itself. Dictation into any app is free; Pro is a one-time purchase.
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