WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Meta, has introduced a new feature that transcribes voice messages into text.
The feature will help users who are on the go, in noisy environments, or prefer reading over listening to lengthy voice notes.
The transcription feature will be rolled out globally in the coming weeks, starting with support for a select number of languages. To activate it, users can navigate to Settings > Chats > Voice Message Transcripts and toggle the feature on.
Once enabled, users can transcribe voice messages by long-pressing the message and selecting the “Transcribe” option.
For Android devices, transcripts will initially support English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. iOS users will have access to a broader range of languages, depending on their operating system. For example, iOS 16 and above, the available languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic.
Meanwhile iOS 17 also supports Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, and Thai.
WhatsApp said that all voice message transcriptions are processed directly on the user’s device, ensuring that personal messages remain protected by the app’s end-to-end encryption.
