How to turn WhatsApp voice notes into text

Have you ever been in a situation where a friend or colleague sends you a voice note but you can’t listen to it? This might because there is a lot of noise where you are or you don’t have earphones and you don’t want the contents of the conversation to be audible when you put your phone to your ear. Well… there is an app called Transcriber for WhatsApp that will turn your voice notes in to text, if you are in a situation that won’t allow you to listen to it.

Now, I am well aware that this might not be news to some of you. If there’s anything I know about the Techzim community is that there are those among you who have already used this app or something similar, I mean speech to text software isn’t anything new or revolutionary in 2021.

However, for people like me who had this voice note to text itch but never bothered to look up a way to transcribe them, here’s how you get started:

• First, you’ll need to go to the Play Store and download Transcribe for WhatsApp which you can do with the link here.
• Then, you’ll need to go into your WhatsApp and select a voice note you want to be converted into text.
• Once highlighted hit the share icon and select Transcribe for WhatsApp and it will turn the voice note into text you can read in a popup.

Does it work?

It does for the most part. But as with any speech to text software, there are going to be some gaffes. For example it transcribed my name as “Portal” in one voice note I turned to text.

But other than the one hiccup, it’s worked well so far. You can also use Transcribe for WhatsApp to speed up voice notes much like the feature that WhatsApp is refining in-app.

An important thing to note with any like that comes into an end-to-end encrypted app is privacy. I went through Transcribe for WhatsApp’s policy and there was very little in the way of how they will deal with the information it pulls from your voice notes. I am always sceptical with things like this and I recommend using it sparingly but you can check out the terms of service for yourself with the link here.