Real time transcription: Your microphone in meetings, interviews, talks and lectures

Where to put the microphone

To transcribe the sound of an online meeting in a browser tab, sharing tab audio with the Other option under streaming platforms may work better. No bot joins the meeting.

For recording setups in meetings, workshops and conferences, see meeting transcription software; for the classroom, see lecture transcription.

Transcription vs dictation

A phone keyboard’s voice typing is good for your own short messages: you speak, it types, you send. Microphone transcription is for writing down other people at length. It waits through silences, tells speakers apart, starts paragraphs, keeps times and stores the text as a document. If you are only taking notes for yourself, free voice typing may be enough.

On phone and desktop

On a computer with a graphics card, the most accurate models run. On a phone only small models are available, so accuracy falls a little. For a long session on a phone, plug it in and keep the screen on, because the browser may stop the work when the screen goes off.

You can also use a phone as the microphone and have a strong computer do the work. Choose that computer under Where to transcribe? in Settings, and the audio goes to it without touching the server. Choosing a model covers which to pick when.

Working on the text as they speak

The strength of transcribing from the microphone is that the text is already in your hands. Correct a name in a meeting at once, and you do not have to read the whole text again when the talk ends. Make a key sentence bold during a talk, or add a heading during a lecture, and the incoming text stays out of your way. Editing while transcribing goes into this further.

Keeping the recording on your device

While you transcribe from the microphone, the audio is also recorded on this device. Listen to it or download it under Audio recordings on the transcript page. The recording is not sent to the server and does not appear on your other devices. It helps when you want to check a sentence by ear, so delete old ones if space runs short. Clearing your browser data removes them too.

If the connection drops

Starting asks the server how much time you have left, so the first step needs a connection. Once started, with This device selected, a dropped connection does not stop the transcription, and the text is saved when the connection returns. Keep the tab open. In a hall with weak Wi-Fi, this makes a real difference.

Limits of microphone transcription

• If the microphone cannot hear the speaker, neither can the model. No model repairs a bad recording.
• Overlapping talk and short murmurs may go to the wrong speaker.
• It does not write meeting summaries or translate; it sets down what is said.
• Telling people before you record them is your responsibility.

The free plan has 30 minutes to try it in your own setting, and the rest is under plans. If you want to know where the audio goes, private transcription also shows how to verify it.