How do you turn a voice memo into text on iPhone?

Open the recording in the Voice Memos app and choose View Transcript. Apple's steps then let you select the text and tap Copy to paste it into another app ¹. The feature needs an iPhone 12 or later, one of Apple's supported transcription languages, and a country or region where it is offered ^{2 3}.

Voice Memos turns the speech in a recording into text

Apple says that speech in audio recordings can be transcribed to text in Voice Memos ⁴. You can open the transcript while you are recording or after the recording ends ⁵. The steps below are for a recording you have already made.

This is different from the microphone key on the keyboard, which types words as you speak. The keyboard is covered in our guide to dictation on iPhone. The steps below work on a recording you already have.

Four steps turn a finished memo into text

1. Open the Voice Memos app and tap the recording.
2. Tap the recording's menu button, then choose View Transcript.
3. Read the text. To use part of it, select the words you want.
4. Tap Copy, then paste the text into Notes, Mail or another app.

Apple's wording for steps 2 to 4 is "Choose View Transcript, select the text you want to copy, then tap Copy" ¹. The article we read does not name the menu button's icon, so look for the menu on the recording's screen. Its name may differ slightly with your iOS version.

Your iPhone, language and region decide whether a transcript appears

Three requirements decide whether the option is there at all. Apple states each one in its article.

What to do when a memo has no transcript

Most missing transcripts come from one of these causes.

• An older iPhone. A model older than iPhone 12 falls outside Apple's requirement, so no setting adds the option.
• A language that is not on the list. Apple's list is short. A recording in a language outside it will not get a transcript from this feature.
• A region on the excluded list. Apple says transcription is not available in every country or region, but its article does not name the excluded countries. Check the country your iPhone is set to.
• A transcript that disappears. We did not find an Apple statement that explains why a transcript can vanish after it has appeared, so we cannot give a verified cause. Update iOS, open the recording again, and if the problem stays, contact Apple Support.

If the memo is a voicemail rather than a recording you made, the steps are different. See how to turn voicemail into text on iPhone and Android.

Other ways to get the text

The Notes app has its own recording feature. Apple's article on Notes is not in our sources, but a university help page says that in the Notes app on iPhone, a recording made inside a note shows its transcript when you tap the chat bubble icon, and that spoken words in supported languages are transcribed automatically ⁶. Its help page says that if you do not see the chat bubble icon, the iPhone either does not meet the minimum requirements or does not detect a supported language ⁷.

For a recording file you already have, such as an audio file from another device, a free browser transcription tool can transcribe a file from another device. Check the result against the audio, because no transcript is exact.

For the broader topic, see dictation and voice to text on phones and tablets. Related questions: turning voice messages into text, transcribing a phone call, and transcribing recordings on Android.