Transcribe your iPhone voice memos, each with its recording date
Share your memos out of the iPhone Voice Memos app, upload them or a ZIP, and every memo is transcribed word for word under a heading with the date and time it was recorded, oldest first. Renamed memos usually keep their recording date, and both .m4a and the newer .qta files work. Memos of up to 15 minutes in total are free in full; more cost $5, paid once, for up to 6 hours in total.
- .m4a and .qta files from the iPhone or Mac Voice Memos app, up to 200 per job
- Recording date taken from the date stored inside each memo
- Headings such as "14 Mar 2025, 19:02 · Gym thoughts.m4a"
- Word, PDF or TXT document, a CSV with one row per memo, and a TXT plus SRT for each
- Optional translation printed under every paragraph
Getting memos off your iPhone, step by step
- Open the Voice Memos app, tap Edit and select the recordings you want
- Tap the Share button and choose Save to Files to put them in a folder on the phone or in iCloud Drive, or choose AirDrop to send them to a Mac
- For a big set, open that folder in the Files app, select it and choose Compress to get one ZIP
- Upload the files or the ZIP straight from Safari on the phone, or from a computer
- On a Mac, open Voice Memos and drag the memos into a Finder folder; with Voice Memos syncing through iCloud, recordings from your iPhone appear there too
How the recording dates survive
An iPhone memo stores the moment it was recorded inside the file, together with the time zone offset of where you were. That local time is used as it is, so a memo recorded at 8:14 in the morning on a trip abroad shows 8:14, not the hour back home.
The title you give a memo becomes its file name when you share it. Renaming "New Recording 37" to "Call with Dana" does not touch the date inside, so the memo usually stays in its place. If a title contains a date written like 2024-05-02, that date is used first. Memos that passed through a messaging app or an audio converter can lose their stored date; then the date saved in your ZIP is used, and memos with no date at all go after the dated ones, by name.
About .qta files
Recent iOS versions save some memos as .qta instead of .m4a. If another app turned them away, there is no need to convert them: they are accepted here like any other memo and read for their stored date in the same way.
How the tool works, what it costs and how your files are handled is on the Voice Memos to Text page; prices for every tool are on the pricing page.
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Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT transcribe my iPhone voice memos?
For one short memo you attach, it usually does a fair job. With dozens you upload them one by one, and the reply has no idea when each was recorded, so the order and the dates are lost along the way.
How much does it cost to transcribe iPhone memos?
Memos of up to 15 minutes in total are free in full. More cost $5, paid once, for up to 200 files and 6 hours in total. Unlimited, at $19 a week, allows 12 hours per job.
Why is one memo out of order?
It probably lost its stored date, for example after being sent through a messaging app. Rename that file with its date and time, like "2024-05-02 08.14 Idea.m4a", and upload again: a date in the name is used first.
Can I upload straight from my iPhone?
Yes. Save the memos to Files first, then pick them in the upload dialog in Safari.
What if my memos are in different languages?
Each memo is transcribed in the language spoken in it. You can also pick a translation language to get a translation under every paragraph.
Who can see my memos?
Only you can open your job. The audio is sent to an AI model provider only to be transcribed and is not used to train models. Jobs started without an account are deleted after 7 days, and you can delete a job at any time.