WhatsApp Rolls Out Voice-To-Text Transcription For Messages

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This feature is designed to help users follow conversations in noisy environments, while on the go, or when they're unable to listen to audio.

WhatsApp emphasised that privacy will be maintained, as the transcription happens locally on your device. Neither WhatsApp nor any third parties can access the content of your voice messages.

Similar to text messages, you can choose whether to enable read receipts for voice messages in your privacy settings. This gives you control over whether the sender knows you've listened to their message.

To activate the new voice-to-text feature, go to your WhatsApp settings and tap on "Chats".  There, you'll find a toggle for "Voice message transcripts". Turn it on and select the language you want WhatsApp to transcribe.

Once you've enabled the feature, you can transcribe any voice message by long-pressing it and selecting the "Transcribe" option.

At launch, the voice message transcription feature supports a limited number of languages, but WhatsApp plans to expand this in the future.

If you're using an Android device, you can transcribe voice messages in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian.

iOS users have access to a wider range of languages. On iOS 16, you can transcribe messages in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic, in addition to the languages available on Android. If you have iOS 17 or later, even more languages are supported, including Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Bahasa Malaysia, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, and Thai.

The voice message transcription feature is being rolled out globally and should be available to all users in the coming weeks.