Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp has rolled out a transcript feature for voice messages, the company announced.
The transcribe feature is targeted at users who are on the move, in a loud place, or those who have received a long voice note and can’t stop to listen to it.
The feature will roll out globally over the coming weeks with select few languages to begin with.
Which languages are supported?
For Android devices, transcripts will be available in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. Apple users will have a larger set of languages to choose from. However, the language supported depends on the OS.
English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic are supported on iOS 16+.
On iOS 17+, the following additional languages are supported: Danish, Finish, Hebrew, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish and Thai.
Siri must be enabled to see voice message transcripts on iOS, WhatsApp clarified.
WhatsApp also mentioned that users may receive a “transcript unavailable” at times. This might be because the transcript language setting doesn’t match the language of the voice message, or some words aren’t recognized, possibly due to background noise, or the voice message language isn’t supported.
WhatsApp also cautioned that it’s possible that voice message transcripts are inaccurate.
How to activate the feature?
To activate the feature, users can go to Settings > Chats > Voice message transcripts. Here, they will be able to select their transcript language.
Then, to transcribe a message, the user must long press on it and tap ‘transcribe’. It’s important to note that not all voice messages will be automatically transcribed. Instead, the user must manually select the message they want transcribed.
“We’re excited to build on this experience and make it even better and more seamless,” WhatsApp said.
WhatsApp clarified that voice message transcript feature must be enabled on the device in order to be used. Only once enabled can the message recipient can see voice message transcripts. WhatsApp also added that these transcripts won’t be visible to the sender.
Privacy concerns
WhatsApp clarified that voice message transcripts are generated on the user’s device, and the personal voice messages remain protected by end-to-end encryption.
“No one, including WhatsApp, can listen to your voice messages or see the content of your voice message transcripts,” the company said.
Other features
Earlier, WhatsApp introduced a feature that saves unsent messages as draft, allowing the user to resume right where they left off, without having to worry about losing the earlier text. The feature works on both smartphones and WhatsApp web.
