Voice memo to text: transcribe an iPhone or Mac recording free

Transcribing a voice memo to text is free with sAInote, an AI voice-to-text app: upload the recording and read the transcript in your browser. Voice Memos on iPhone and Mac exports .m4a files, and sAInote accepts M4A directly, so there is no conversion step. WAV, MP3, MP4, WebM, OGG and Opus work too, up to 64 MB per file. The free allowance is 15 minutes of audio, one time rather than 15 minutes a month, and no account is required to use it. Sign in and your notes are saved and searchable.

Transcribe a voice memo 15 minutes free · no sign-up · no install

What you get after the upload

M4A uploads with no conversion: Apple's Voice Memos app exports .m4a and sAInote reads that format as it is. WAV, MP3, MP4, WebM, OGG and Opus upload the same way. Up to 64 MB per file.
Verbatim, or cleaned up: Quick Note returns exactly what was said, word for word. Smart Summary removes filler, repairs broken sentences and adds headings and lists while leaving the facts alone. Both work without an account.
Long recordings handled: Anything up to 20 minutes is processed immediately on every plan. From 20 minutes to 2 hours it runs in the background on Pro, with speaker separation and a summary built section by section.
Translate while you edit: Edit & Translate works inside Smart Summary: a single pass produces an edited version in one of roughly 35 target languages. The language you pick is remembered for the next recording.
Names spelled correctly: Special Names is a personal spelling glossary. Add colleagues, clients, products or jargon and those words are spelled the way you wrote them rather than guessed phonetically. It never rewrites what was said. Pro only.
History you can search: Signed-in notes are saved across devices and searchable, and the search looks at both the raw transcript and the processed output. Translated notes carry a badge. Guests get no history.

How to transcribe a voice memo to text

1

Export the memo on iPhone

Open Voice Memos, select the recording and use the share option. Save it to Files or send it to yourself. What comes out is an .m4a file.
2

Or pull it out of the Mac app

In Voice Memos on macOS, drag the recording from the list onto your desktop, or use the share menu. It is the same .m4a file, and it needs no conversion.
3

Upload it to sAInote

Open sainote.com in any browser and add the file — up to 64 MB, and up to 2 hours long. Nothing to install, and no account needed for the first 15 minutes.
4

Pick Quick Note or Smart Summary

Choose Quick Note for a word-for-word transcript, or Smart Summary for an edited version with paragraphs and headings. On Pro, apply a saved instruction of your own instead.
5

Read it, copy it, keep it

The text appears on the page, ready to copy. Sign in with an emailed 6-digit code, a magic link, or Apple or Google, and the note stays in your searchable history.

Transcribe a voice memo to text free: what the limit actually is

The free allowance is 15 minutes of audio, and it is one time rather than monthly. A guest with no account gets those 15 minutes in the browser. A free account gets 15 minutes too, and adds a note history that is saved across devices and searchable — the search looks at both the raw transcript and the edited output. Neither allowance refills at the start of the month, which is worth knowing before you plan a backlog around it.

Usage is measured in minutes of audio, not in requests, files or words. A 3-minute memo costs 3 minutes of balance whether you ask for a verbatim transcript or a full edited summary, so the more elaborate mode never costs more than the plain one.

Pro is the plan that renews: 360 minutes — 6 hours of audio — every month, plus recordings longer than 20 minutes, the Pro Assistant mode, the Special Names spelling glossary and priority support. Quick Note and Smart Summary are not held back for Pro; they work on every plan, guests included.

M4A, and the other formats that upload without conversion

Apple's Voice Memos app exports .m4a. sAInote accepts M4A directly, so a memo goes from the share sheet to the upload box with nothing in between — no converter, no re-encoding, no desktop tool to install first. Files from other phone recorders behave the same way, as long as they are in one of the accepted formats.

The accepted list is WAV, MP3, M4A, MP4, WebM, OGG and Opus. MP4 is on the list because a screen recording or a video clip can be uploaded for its audio. The ceiling is 64 MB per file — that is the size limit, and it is separate from the length limit.

Length is capped at 2 hours per recording, and anything longer is rejected rather than quietly truncated. Up to 20 minutes, transcription starts straight away on any plan. Between 20 minutes and 2 hours the job runs in the background on Pro, so you can close the tab and come back to it, and those longer recordings get speaker separation plus a summary assembled section by section instead of in one pass.

Most people don't want the memo verbatim

A raw transcript of a voice memo is often not what you were after. Spoken thinking has restarts, filler and half-finished sentences, and the point tends to arrive late. Quick Note gives you that text exactly as spoken, which is the right choice when the wording itself matters — an interview, a quote you need to attribute, a note you may have to defend later.

Smart Summary is the second half of the job. It edits: filler goes, broken sentences are repaired, and the text gets paragraphs, headings and lists. What it does not do is change the facts or add new ones. It is available to guests, so you can watch what it does to one of your own memos before committing to anything.

Pro Assistant goes further by letting you write the instruction yourself and save it. If your memos are always client call notes, or always need to come out as an email draft, you define that once and apply it to any recording. Special Names sits alongside it — a personal spelling glossary of colleagues, clients, products and jargon, used as a spelling reference only. It never rewrites what was said.

Skip the export step next time

Exporting from Voice Memos is a reasonable way to deal with recordings you already have, but it is still a step. The sAInote iPhone and iPad app records and transcribes in one place, so there is no file to move. On macOS there is an app with a menu-bar item and a global Quick Capture hotkey, Control+Option+Command+N by default, for the note you want to take without hunting for a window first.

Signing in is what connects them, and there is no password involved: you get a 6-digit code or a magic link by email, or you use Sign in with Apple or Google. After that, a note recorded on the phone sits in the same searchable history as a memo uploaded from the Mac, and translated notes carry a badge so you can tell them apart at a glance.

Audio you upload goes to private cloud storage. It is never public, never indexed and cannot be shared by URL, and it is cleaned up on a schedule once processing is done. For anything programmatic there is a REST API with a raw mode and a smart mode, keyed and metered per client, which stores neither the audio nor the text.

Voice memo to text: common questions

Can I transcribe a voice memo to text for free?

Yes. sAInote gives you 15 minutes of audio free and you can use it in the browser without creating an account. That allowance is one time, not a monthly refill. A free account also gets 15 minutes and adds a saved, searchable history. Pro renews 360 minutes — 6 hours of audio — every month.

Do I have to convert M4A to MP3 first?

No. sAInote accepts M4A exactly as Apple's Voice Memos app exports it, so there is no conversion step and no quality lost to re-encoding. WAV, MP3, MP4, WebM, OGG and Opus are accepted as well. The limits are 64 MB maximum upload size and a 2-hour cap per recording.

How long can a voice memo be?

Up to 2 hours, which is the hard cap per recording — anything longer is rejected. Recordings up to 20 minutes are processed immediately on every plan, guests included. Recordings between 20 minutes and 2 hours are processed in the background and are available on Pro only.

How do I get a voice memo off my iPhone?

Use the share option inside the Voice Memos app: select the recording, share it, then save it to Files or send it to yourself. The exported file is an .m4a, which uploads to sAInote as-is. On a Mac you can also drag the recording straight out of the app onto your desktop.

Can I get a summary instead of the full transcript?

Yes. Smart Summary is an AI-edited version of the recording — filler removed, sentences repaired, paragraphs, headings and lists added, facts unchanged — and it is available on every plan including guests. Pro adds Pro Assistant, where you write and save your own instruction and apply it to any recording.

Can sAInote translate a voice memo?

Yes, in Smart Summary mode. Edit & Translate does the editing and the translation in one pass into roughly 35 target languages, and it remembers the language you chose. The interface itself ships in 11 languages, with Arabic and Urdu rendered right-to-left. Speech recognition covers considerably more languages than the interface does.

Is there an app so I can skip the export?

Yes. sAInote has a native iPhone and iPad app that records and transcribes in one place, so there is no file to export. There is also a macOS app with a menu-bar item and a global Quick Capture hotkey, Control+Option+Command+N by default. There is no Android app and no browser extension.

What happens to my audio after transcription?

It goes to private cloud storage. It is never public, never indexed by search engines and cannot be shared by URL. Audio is kept for processing and cleaned up on a schedule. Traffic through the sAInote REST API stores neither audio nor text. You can delete your account in-app, which anonymises the data.

Do I need a password to sign in?

No. sAInote has no passwords at all. You enter your email and receive either a 6-digit code or a magic link, or you sign in with Apple or Google. Signing in is what gives you saved, searchable note history; without an account you can still transcribe 15 minutes as a guest.

Start with one memo

Pick the recording that has been sitting on your phone the longest, export it and drop it in. Fifteen minutes of audio, no account, no install and no conversion step — then decide whether you want more.

Transcribe a voice memo