M4A to text
Transcribe M4A recordings — iPhone Voice Memos, interviews, meeting captures — into text.
Transcribed on your device
How it works
- Choose an M4A file — for example a Voice Memo shared from your phone.
- Pick the spoken language and a model, then transcribe.
- Copy the transcript or download it as TXT, SRT, or VTT.
The Voice Memo format
If you record on an iPhone, you have M4A files: Voice Memos saves everything in that container, and so do many Android recorders, WhatsApp voice exports, and meeting apps. M4A is AAC audio in an MP4 wrapper — small files, decent quality, and precisely the kind of personal recording people hesitate to upload to a random transcription site. This tool decodes M4A directly in your browser tab and transcribes it with a local Whisper model, so the recording stays on your device end to end.
The workflow from an iPhone: in Voice Memos, share the recording and save it to Files (or AirDrop it to your computer), then drop the M4A onto this page. Phone recordings are usually single-speaker, close-mic speech — near-ideal input, so the fast model handles them well and short memos finish in seconds.
Getting clean results from phone recordings
- Set the language first — the model transcribes what you tell it to hear, and a wrong language setting produces confident nonsense.
- Memos recorded in pockets, cars, and cafés carry noise — switch to the sharper model and expect to fix a few phrases.
- Long interviews are fine — no length cap — but speakers are not labeled, so the timestamps in the output are your friend when attributing lines.
The transcript can be copied in one click or downloaded as TXT, SRT, or VTT with timestamps. More on formats and accuracy in the transcription guide.
Questions
- How do I get a Voice Memo onto this page?
- In the Voice Memos app, tap the recording, use Share, and save it to Files or AirDrop it to your computer — that produces an M4A file you can drop here. No conversion step is needed.
- Can I use this on my phone directly?
- Yes, the page works in a mobile browser and the file picker can reach your Files app. For long recordings a laptop is more comfortable — the speed comes from your own hardware either way.
- Does it work with WhatsApp or meeting-app audio?
- If you can export the audio as a file — M4A, MP3, OGG, or a video — you can transcribe it here. Recordings locked inside an app need to be exported first, which the app's share function usually provides.
- Is my recording sent to a server?
- No. The M4A is decoded and transcribed inside your browser tab. The only network request is the one-time download of the speech model, which is then cached for offline use.
- What languages can it transcribe?
- The models are multilingual Whisper variants covering 90+ languages. Select the spoken language before transcribing — English, Chinese, Spanish, and other well-represented languages give the strongest results.