WhatsApp is taking a cue from iMessage and finally adding support for voice message transcripts. This will allow the app to show transcriptions of voice notes when you cannot listen to the audio itself.
Meta beta test voice message transcription in WhatsApp for over a year before rolling it out to the public.
Enable voice message transcription by jumping into WhatsApp settings
Apple introduced voice message transcription in the iPhone Messages app with iOS 17 in 2023. Voice notes provide a handy and quick way to send long messages without the hassle of typing them out.
However, the recipient might be in a noisy or public setting, making it difficult for them to listen to the voice note at that moment. This is where voice transcription comes in handy, providing a written transcript of the received voice message so the recipient can read and understand its content.
To use voice message transcription in WhatsApp, grab the latest build from the App Store. Then, navigate to Settings > Chats > Voice message transcripts and enable the feature. After this, to transcribe a voice note, long press on it and select transcribe.
The feature is rolling out gradually
WhatsApp notes in its announcement that message transcription is rolling out gradually, so the feature might not immediately show up on your phone. For privacy reasons, voice message transcripts are generated entirely on-device, and they do not affect the end-to-end encryption of the shared voice note.
On iPhones, WhatsApp message transcription works in several languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Swedish, Thai, and more.
In comparison, on Android, the feature only works with four languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian.
Meta is working on adding support for more languages in the future. Do note that the message transcript might not always be accurate. And if the voice note has too much background noise, the transcription might fail.
