MP3 to text
Turn an MP3 recording — a podcast, interview, or voice note — into searchable, quotable text.
Transcribed on your device
How it works
- Choose an MP3 file.
- Pick the spoken language and a model, then transcribe.
- Copy the transcript or download it as TXT, SRT, or VTT.
Why transcribe MP3s locally
MP3 is the default format for spoken audio: podcast episodes, interview recordings, dictation, old voice notes. Most transcription services want you to upload those files to their cloud — fine for a public podcast, less fine for an interview under embargo, a therapy-adjacent recording, or anything you would rather keep on your own machine. This tool transcribes MP3s with a Whisper model that runs inside your browser tab, so the audio never leaves your device and there is no per-minute billing.
MP3 is also the friendliest input here: the files are small, decode instantly, and the compression artifacts that MP3 introduces barely matter for speech recognition. If you have a choice of formats for the same recording, the lossless original (like WAV) can squeeze out a little more accuracy — but a decent-bitrate MP3 transcribes almost identically.
Practical notes for common MP3s
- Podcasts — clear studio speech is the best case; expect clean output with the fast model. Ads read over music may come out rougher.
- Interviews — speakers are not labeled or separated, so plan to attribute lines yourself; the timestamps make that quick.
- Dictation and voice notes — short files finish in seconds; select the right language first, since a wrong one produces confident nonsense.
The transcript appears with timestamps as each 30-second window completes, and you can copy it or download it as plain text or subtitle files (SRT/VTT). The transcription guide explains the format choice and what accuracy to expect in more depth.
Questions
- How accurate is MP3 transcription here?
- Clear speech in a quiet recording transcribes well, especially with the sharper model selected. Heavy accents, crosstalk, background music, and specialist vocabulary still trip up small on-device models — treat the output as a strong first draft for anything critical.
- Does MP3 compression hurt accuracy?
- Barely. Speech recognition is robust to MP3 artifacts at normal bitrates (128 kbps and up). A lossless original is marginally better, but re-encoding an MP3 to WAV before transcribing gains nothing.
- Can it handle a two-hour podcast?
- Yes — there is no length cap, because processing happens on your device in 30-second windows. Long files just take proportionally longer, and you can stop early and keep the partial transcript.
- Are different speakers identified?
- No. Speaker separation requires a much larger model that is impractical in a browser tab today. You get one continuous timestamped text and attribute the speakers yourself.
- Is my MP3 uploaded to a server?
- No. The file is decoded and transcribed locally in your browser. The only download is the one-time model file, cached for later visits — after that the tool works offline.