About voice message transcripts

Android
iOS
Voice message transcripts are written versions of voice messages. The voice message transcript feature must be enabled on your device to use it. Once enabled, the message recipient can see voice message transcripts. The sender can’t see the transcripts.
Voice message transcripts are generated on your device, and your personal voice messages remain protected by end-to-end encryption. No one, including WhatsApp, can listen to your voice messages or see the content of your voice message transcripts.
Read receipts for voice messages will display based on the settings enabled in your privacy settings, learn more here. You can also learn more about voice messages in this article.

Turn voice message transcripts on or off

Voice message transcripts are disabled by default and must be enabled.
  1. Open WhatsApp Settings.
  2. Tap Chats.
  3. Turn Voice Message Transcripts on or off.
  4. When enabling Voice Message Transcripts, select your Transcript language.
To see voice message transcripts, Siri must be enabled. Learn how to turn on Siri here. If Siri wasn’t enabled prior to turning on voice message transcripts, then you will need to download the selected language when enabling voice message transcripts.
Note: Languages currently supported depend on your OS. English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic are supported on iOS 16+. The following additional languages are supported on iOS 17+: Danish, Finish, Hebrew, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish and Thai.

How to see voice message transcripts

  • Enable voice message transcripts on your device.
  • Tap and hold a voice message, then tap Transcribe.
  • Tap
    open close menu
    in the voice message to expand the transcription.
  • Ensure that your operating system is iOS 16 or newer and “Hey Siri” is enabled. To learn how to use Siri with WhatsApp, read this article.
The voice message transcript might take a moment to become available. If you receive a “Transcript unavailable” error, it might be because:
  • Your transcript language setting doesn’t match the language of the voice message.
  • Some words aren’t recognized, possibly due to background noise.
  • The voice message language isn't supported.
It’s possible that voice message transcripts are inaccurate.

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