Woon-Mo Sung

November 22, 2024, 12:08 pm | Read time: 3 minutes

About two billion people worldwide use WhatsApp. With the app, they can communicate with loved ones in various ways. A popular feature is the voice message, which will soon be improved for users. They will then be able to read them easily.

Converting WhatsApp Voice Messages to Text Soon Possible

The feature was promised by those responsible back in 2021 and has been tested since then. The beta phase now seems to be complete, as the official release is set to begin shortly. According to a recent blog post on WhatsApp, the ability to convert voice messages to text on WhatsApp will be available “in the coming weeks worldwide.”

Also interesting: 4 Tips for Voice Messages on WhatsApp

How to Use the Audio Transcription

Due to the previous beta test, it is already known how the feature will work in detail. Once users have downloaded the relevant update, they must first activate the new feature. To do this, they go to “Settings,” then press “Chats,” and then go to “Voice Message Transcriptions.” Here, they must enable the option to convert voice messages to text on WhatsApp and also set the appropriate language.

When receiving a new voice message, users need to press and hold it briefly. Then, they tap on the appearing option “Transcribe” to convert the message into text. This may take a short moment.

Also interesting: Play WhatsApp Voice Messages at Different Speeds

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What You Also Need to Consider

For iOS users, Siri must be activated, as stated in a separate post. If this has not been done beforehand, users will need to download the selected language first. Additionally, at least iOS 16 must be installed. For Android, WhatsApp does not specify a particular version as a requirement. As of November 21, 2024, English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian are supported for Android. More languages are expected to be added in the coming months.

For iOS, however, the language selection depends on the operating system. Under iOS 16 and higher, users can choose from English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic. From iOS 17, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Malay, Norwegian, Swedish, and Thai are also available.

Possible Sources of Error

WhatsApp generates transcriptions directly on the device, and voice messages are end-to-end encrypted. If the error message “Transcript not available” appears, it may be due to the following reasons:

• The transcription language setting does not match the language of the voice message.
• Some words are not recognized, possibly due to background noise.
• The spoken language is not currently supported.

In general, transcriptions can be inaccurate.