Free tool
Voice memo to text
Drop a recording from your phone here to turn a voice memo to text: the converter writes out what you said, paragraph by paragraph with times, ready to paste into a note, an email or a to-do list.
- Free
- iPhone and Android
- Nothing is stored
Drop your voice memo here, or Choose your voice memo
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.
Rather talk to your Mac? NoteOwl’s voice notes are free: record a thought and it’s saved as searchable text, with the audio kept.
How it works
How do you turn a voice memo into text?
Save the memo as an audio file, then pick it here, on the phone itself or on a computer. The converter reads the file in your browser, transcribes it piece by piece and shows your words with their times. Copy them out or download a file.
- 1
Save the memo as a file
On an iPhone, Voice Memos exports an M4A to the Files app. On Android, share the recording from your recorder app.
- 2
Choose it here
Tap Choose file and pick the memo. Up to 30 minutes of it are transcribed.
- 3
Copy or keep it
Paste the text into Notes, Mail or a message, or download it as TXT or Word.
How do you get a voice memo off an iPhone?
Export it to the Files app. In Voice Memos, tap the recording, tap More, then the Share button, scroll down and tap Save to Files. Apple saves it as an M4A, a format this converter reads, so you can pick it straight from Files.
A memo recorded in layers is flattened into one track on the way out, and a Spatial Audio memo becomes ordinary stereo. Either way, the converter mixes the channels into one before transcribing, so a voice on either side is kept.
How do you get a recording off an Android phone?
Share it from the app that made it. In Google’s Recorder on a Pixel, touch and hold the recording, tap Share, then File, then Audio, and save it or send it to yourself. Most other recorder apps have a similar Share button for the audio file.
Recorder can share its own transcript as a .txt file as well. Come here when you want a time on every paragraph, subtitles or a Word document instead.
Can’t the iPhone’s Voice Memos app write the text itself?
Often, yes. On an iPhone 12 or later, Voice Memos transcribes English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, though not in every country, and More → Copy Transcript copies the text. This converter covers what that leaves out.
- An older iPhone, or a region without transcription
- What this converter addsTranscribes the exported M4A on any device
- A memo in Hindi, Polish, Dutch or another unlisted language
- What this converter addsDetects the language from the sound
- You want to find a moment again
- What this converter addsA time at the start of every paragraph
- You need a file, not a clipboard
- What this converter addsTXT, Word, SRT or VTT downloads
- An Android phone or a Windows PC
- What this converter addsRuns in any current browser
| Your situation | What this converter adds |
|---|---|
| An older iPhone, or a region without transcription | Transcribes the exported M4A on any device |
| A memo in Hindi, Polish, Dutch or another unlisted language | Detects the language from the sound |
| You want to find a moment again | A time at the start of every paragraph |
| You need a file, not a clipboard | TXT, Word, SRT or VTT downloads |
| An Android phone or a Windows PC | Runs in any current browser |
What can you do with a voice memo transcript?
Turn talk into something you can act on. Read it back once, pull out the tasks, dates and names, and paste the rest where it belongs. A pause of a second and a half starts a new paragraph, so pausing between thoughts keeps them apart.
Ideas into a list
Each paragraph holds one thought. Paste the ones worth keeping into a to-do list and let the rest go.
A draft, spoken first
Talk an email, a post or a toast through on a walk, then edit the transcript instead of facing a blank page.
A spoken diary
Dated memos read back as a journal you can search months later.
Reminders on the go
Names, numbers and dates are easy to find in text and easy to miss in audio. Check any digits against the recording.
Recording your thoughts on a Mac instead?
NoteOwl’s voice notes are free and unlimited: record on your Mac and each note is transcribed there and saved as searchable text, with the audio kept. For memos made on your iPhone, NoteOwl transcribes the file on your Mac with unlimited transcription and labels each speaker.
Here’s the Mac route for a memo from your iPhone, step by step.
FAQ
Questions about turning a voice memo into text
Is this voice memo transcriber free?
Yes. Transcribe 3 memos a day, up to 30 minutes each, without an account. Copying and every download format come with it.
Can I do it on my phone, without a computer?
Yes. Open this page in Safari or Chrome on the phone, tap Choose file and pick the memo from Files or your downloads. Stay on the page while it works, because a phone may pause a page left in the background, then copy the text.
Will a long voice memo work?
Up to 30 minutes of it. A longer memo is transcribed that far, and the page says so. In Voice Memos, trim the remainder into its own recording with Save as New Recording, then transcribe that part as well.
Does a memo recorded in stereo work?
Yes. Stereo and Spatial Audio memos are mixed down to a single channel before transcription, so speech picked up by either microphone is kept.
Where does my voice memo go?
Nowhere permanent. The page cuts the sound into short pieces and sends them over a secure connection to a cloud AI transcription service, which transcribes and discards each one. NoteOwl doesn’t store the memo or its text.
Can it transcribe a memo with two people talking?
Yes, as one transcript with times, but it doesn’t label who said what. Longer pauses start new paragraphs, which makes adding names easier. NoteOwl on a Mac labels the speakers in an imported memo.
Which languages can a voice memo be in?
Most widely spoken languages. The converter recognises the language from the sound and names it beside the transcript, so a memo in Hindi, Polish or Dutch is written in that language.
Keep exploring
More audio to text tools
- Audio to text converterTranscribe audio to text free: drop in an MP3, M4A, WAV or other recording and get an AI transcript with times, as text, SRT, VTT or Word; nothing is stored
- Voicemail to textTurn a saved voicemail into text free in your browser, from an iPhone, Android or office phone system; nothing is stored
- Voice message to textTurn a voice message from WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal into text free in your browser; nothing is stored
- Phone call transcriptionTranscribe a recorded phone call free in your browser, with times for each part of the call; nothing is stored
- Sermon transcriptionTranscribe a recorded sermon or talk free in your browser, ready for notes, a blog post or captions; nothing is stored
Your spoken thoughts, saved as text 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.
NoteOwl pricing: what’s free and what Pro adds
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