How to transcribe a voice memo on iPhone

A voice memo is just an audio file on your phone. Transcribing it means running speech recognition over that audio to get text you can search, paste and edit. On an iPhone this can happen entirely on the device: Kaseta transcribes in 99 languages without an account, and – once its models are downloaded – with the network switched off. You record or import, tap Stop, and read the text when the phone is done.

One thing to clear up first, because the search results are full of it: this is an app, not a gadget. A lot of what sells as a “voice recorder with transcription” is hardware – a pocket dictaphone with a subscription bolted on. Kaseta is software on the phone already in your pocket. Nothing to buy, nothing to charge, nothing to pair.

What you already have

Voice Memos saves every recording as an .m4a file on the phone, which is why it can be handed to another app instantly instead of being uploaded first. If the file came from somewhere else – an email attachment, a message, a download – the route is the same, and the .m4a guide walks through it.

What it costs

The free plan records without limits and transcribes the first 5 minutes of each recording. Audio keeps recording past that point and is saved in full; the cap is on the text, never on the recording. Pro – $19.99 a year, or $39.99 once and never again – transcribes the whole recording and lifts the monthly allowance on the Quality model. Export, in five text formats, is on every plan.

When something else is the better tool

Apple’s own transcripts. iOS 18 added them to Voice Memos. If your language is one Apple covers and you only need the occasional short transcript, you already have this, it is free, and you do not need another app.
Otter, Notta and the other cloud services. They run a bot that joins your Zoom call and takes its audio feed at source, and they keep a searchable archive your whole team can open in a browser. Kaseta does none of that – it hears the room its phone is in, and the transcript stays on that phone. If that workflow is the job, they are better at it and worth their subscription.
A desktop and a large archive. If you have two hundred hours of interviews on a Mac, running a local Whisper build there will chew through them faster than any phone. That is also offline, and it is free.
A human transcriptionist. For a legal deposition or anything that has to be verbatim and certified, no automatic transcript of any kind is the right answer.

Kaseta earns its place in one specific case: the audio should stay on the device, and you would rather not rent access to your own recordings by the minute. If that is you, start from the homepage or open a memo in the app.

Steps

Open the memo you already have

In Voice Memos, tap the recording and then the share button. Every memo is an .m4a file sitting on the phone, so moving it into another app is a local hand-off, not an upload.

Send it to Kaseta

Pick Kaseta in the share sheet. If the conversation has not happened yet, skip the export and record straight into the app instead.

Tap Stop and wait for the text

Speech recognition runs on the phone once its models are downloaded. The recording shows its progress, then the transcript is ready to read and check – it works in airplane mode.

Copy it or export it

Copying works on every plan, and so does export: Plain Text, Markdown, SRT, WebVTT or JSON, with or without timestamps.

Frequently asked questions

How to transcribe a voice memo on an iPhone?

Share the memo from the Voice Memos app into an app that transcribes, or record inside that app in the first place. With Kaseta the recognition happens on the iPhone itself, so the memo is never uploaded and the transcript appears whether or not you have signal.

Is there a way to transcribe iPhone voice memos?

Yes, and there are two. Since iOS 18 the built-in Voice Memos app produces its own transcript for the languages Apple covers. For a language outside that list, for recordings longer than a few minutes, or for export in subtitle formats, a dedicated app reads the same .m4a and transcribes it on the device.

What is the best transcription app for iPhone?

It depends on where you want the audio to end up. Otter and Notta are stronger if you need a shared team workspace, transcripts colleagues can open in a browser, and a bot that joins your calls and hears every participant at source, and they charge a subscription for it. Kaseta is the better fit when the audio should not leave the phone, or when you would rather pay once than rent minutes.

What is the best free voice recorder with transcription?

Voice Memos is free and already installed, and its transcripts are enough for short notes in the languages Apple supports. Kaseta's free plan records with no limit at all and transcribes the first five minutes of each recording; the five-minute ceiling is on transcription only, the recording itself is never cut off.