Transcription
Also: file transcription
Updated
Definition
Transcription is converting an existing audio or video recording into text after the fact. It is the after-the-fact counterpart to dictation, which produces text live as you speak.
Transcription starts from a file: a recorded meeting, an interview, a lecture, a voice memo. The tool processes the whole recording, often faster than real time, and returns a document. Because the audio already exists, transcription tools can afford slower and more accurate models, run several passes, and add structure that live dictation never needs: timestamps, speaker labels, paragraphing by topic, summaries.
The confusion with dictation is understandable, because the same speech recognition models sit inside both. What differs is everything around the model, and it is rare for one product to be excellent at both jobs.
What transcription needs that dictation does not
Speaker diarization, so the transcript says who said what. Timestamps, so a quote can be found in the recording. Long-form handling, because an hour of audio is a different problem from a sentence. Summaries and action items, because nobody reads a full meeting transcript. Import from files and links, including video.
None of this helps you write an email faster. A dictation tool spends its effort elsewhere: latency, formatting at the cursor, working inside every app, and behaving in a terminal.
Choosing the right kind of tool
If your recording already exists, you want a transcriber. On the Mac, MacWhisper and Superwhisper both transcribe files locally; Otter.ai transcribes meetings in the cloud with speaker labels and summaries. If you are composing, you want dictation. Some people need both, and two focused tools tend to beat one that stretches.
How to transcribe a recording on a Mac with Voice Memos
The Voice Memos app that comes with macOS can show a transcript of a recording. Apple notes that audio transcription is not available in all countries or regions, so the button may be missing on your Mac.
- Open the Voice Memos app on your Mac.
- Click the recording you want to read.
- Click the Transcription button to view the transcript.
- Select the text you want, Control-click it, and choose Copy.
- Paste the text into Mail, a document, or any other app.
- To find a recording by what was said, type the words into the search field. Voice Memos shows recordings with that text in the title or in the transcript.
How to transcribe an audio file in Terminal with Whisper
Whisper is an open speech recognition model, and its code and model weights are released under the MIT License. It ships with a command-line tool that takes audio files and returns text. The project lists Python 3.8 to 3.11 as compatible, and it needs the ffmpeg tool to read audio.
- Open Terminal.
- Install ffmpeg. With Homebrew the command is: brew install ffmpeg
- Install Whisper with: pip install -U openai-whisper
- Run it on a file with: whisper audio.mp3 --model turbo
- If you know the language of the recording, name it, for example: whisper japanese.wav --language Japanese
- To get English text from speech in another language, add --task translate and choose a model other than turbo, for example --model medium.
Is automatic transcription accurate?
It depends on the recording and on the model. With Whisper you choose the trade-off yourself. The project publishes six sizes, from tiny at 39 million parameters to large at 1,550 million, and rates tiny at roughly ten times the speed of large. The turbo model has 809 million parameters and is rated at roughly eight times the speed of large.
Long files are not handled in one pass. Whisper reads the whole file and processes it with a sliding 30-second window, so an error in one stretch does not have to spoil the rest. Whatever tool you use, the honest test is the same: pick a few minutes that matter, play them back, and read along with the transcript before you trust the full document.
Questions people ask.
Is transcription the same as dictation?
No. Transcription turns an existing recording into text; dictation turns your live speech into text where you are writing. The same recognition models can power both, but the products are built differently and are rarely good at both jobs.
Can a dictation app transcribe a recording?
Some can, as a secondary feature. Most dictation apps cannot, and the ones that do rarely offer speaker labels or timestamps. If files are your main job, choose a transcriber first.
Which local Mac tools transcribe files?
MacWhisper is the strongest, with a free tier and a paid Pro version. Superwhisper transcribes recorded files as well as dictating. Both run local models on Apple silicon.
How do I transcribe audio to text on a Mac for free?
Two options cost nothing. The Voice Memos app shows a transcript when you click the Transcription button on a recording, where the feature is available. The open Whisper model can be installed with pip and run on an audio file from Terminal.
Can Whisper translate audio into English?
Yes. Adding --task translate to the whisper command produces English text from speech in another language. The project says the turbo model is not meant for translation, so choose another multilingual model such as medium or large.
Can I copy the text from a Voice Memos transcript?
Yes. Open the transcript on your Mac, select the text, Control-click it, and choose Copy. You can then paste it into any other app.
