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Questions about recording and transcribing on an iPhone

Below are the questions people actually type into a search box about recording and transcribing on an iPhone, plus the ones we get asked directly. The answers are short on purpose; where a question deserves a whole page, there is a link to it.

What Kaseta is

An iPhone voice recorder whose speech recognition runs on the phone. There is no server behind it and no account, which is why it transcribes in airplane mode and why nothing is metering your minutes: Pro is €19.99 a year or €39.99 once, and the pricing page breaks down what each plan includes.

What it is not

It is not a meeting service. There is no bot that joins a call, no shared workspace, no web app and no speaker labels. If those are the point, a cloud tool is the right answer — the alternatives page says so plainly, including the cases where Otter is the better buy.

Frequently asked questions

How to transcribe a voice memo on an iPhone?

Open the memo in an app that transcribes it, or record inside that app to begin with. Voice Memos saves each recording as an .m4a file on the phone, so handing it to another app is a share rather than an upload. With Kaseta the recognition runs on the iPhone itself, so the transcript appears whether or not you have signal and the memo is never sent anywhere.

What is the best transcription app for iPhone?

It depends on where you want the audio to end up. Otter and Notta are the stronger choice if you need speaker labels, a shared team workspace and a bot that joins your calls, and they charge a subscription for it. Kaseta is the better fit when the recording should not leave your phone, or when you would rather not rent access to your own notes by the month.

Can I transcribe audio offline?

Yes, when the speech recognition model runs on the device holding the audio instead of on a remote server. Kaseta works that way on iPhone, so airplane mode, a plane and a basement seminar room all behave the same as full Wi-Fi. The check takes ten seconds and is worth doing yourself: switch every radio off and record something.

Can you convert M4A to text?

Not by converting the file. A format converter rewrites the container and the result is still audio. Getting text means running speech recognition over the sound, which is a different operation: either an app on your device does it, or a service does it on a server after you upload the file. On an iPhone nothing needs converting first, because .m4a is already what Voice Memos saves.

What is the best free voice recorder with transcription?

Apple's Voice Memos is free, already installed, and transcribes short notes in the languages Apple covers. Kaseta's free plan records with no limit at all and transcribes the first five minutes of each recording. The ceiling is on transcription and never on the recording, which keeps going to the end and waits.

Does the app send my recordings anywhere?

No. There is no server behind Kaseta to send them to, so nothing is uploaded, queued for a quiet upload later, or processed on our side. One thing worth knowing is not about the app at all: if iPhone backup is switched on, your recordings are included in your own iCloud backup like everything else on the phone. That copy goes to your Apple account, never to us, and you can exclude Kaseta in the iPhone's iCloud settings.

Do I need an account?

No. No sign-up, no email address and no login screen, because an account would imply a server that knows who you are. That also means there is no account for anyone to subpoena, and no password reset that could hand your recordings to someone else. This website sets no cookies either.

How many languages does it transcribe, and is the app in my language?

Two different numbers, and it is worth not merging them. The transcription engine transcribes 99 languages, every one of them recognised on the phone. The app's own interface ships in 8, a much shorter list. Transcription in your language works whatever language the buttons happen to be written in.

Is there a limit on how long I can record?

No, on any plan. Recording is never cut off by a limit — that is a fixed property of the app rather than a plan feature. Transcription is what has a ceiling: five minutes of each recording on the free plan, up to three hours on Pro. A two-hour lecture on the free plan still records to the end and transcribes its opening stretch.

Can I export the transcript as a file?

Copying the text works on every plan, which is enough to paste a transcript into an email or a course page. Exporting .md or .txt with timestamps is a Pro feature, and it is the one worth having if you move transcripts into notes or documents every week.

Does it label who said what?

Not today. The transcript is continuous text with timecodes, not a speaker-separated script. For dictation, a lecture or an interview you are steering that is usually fine. For a six-person meeting where who said what matters, it is a real gap and a service built around diarisation will serve you better.

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