WhatsApp has announced that voice message transcription is now available on all Android phones. Here’s how to activate it
The wait is over. WhatsApp has just officially announced the arrival of what is probably the most anticipated feature on the platform: the transcription of voice messages , commonly called ‘audios’.
In other words, if you receive an audio and you don’t want to or can’t listen to it, you can now read its content . The feature is now available for all Android devices, and it supports our language. Below, we explain how you can use it on your smartphone.
How to activate audio transcription in WhatsApp
Audio can be very useful for communicating in our chats, but sometimes it can also be annoying. If we are in public and we don’t have our headphones with us, for example, listening to an audio can be a bit uncomfortable. The same is true if we receive a voice message when we are busy at work, sometimes it is simply easier to read than to listen .
Now, we can do just that. Transcription is available on WhatsApp for Android in the stable version of the app , meaning this feature is available to all users and not just in the beta version.
- To activate it, follow these steps:
- Let’s go to WhatsApp and then access the application settings menu
- Next, we access the ‘ Chats ‘ section in the menu
Finally, we activate the transcription of voice messages. It is necessary to download the language pack, which in the case of Spanish has a size of about 138 MB. This should only be done the first time.
To transcribe messages, simply hold down on the audio , then press the three-dot button in the upper right corner and select ‘Transcribe’.
Another even quicker way to activate voice message transcription can be to simply try to transcribe a message. The first time you do this, the app will prompt you to activate transcription and download the language pack .
Audio transcription offers good results, according to our tests. Of course, this can vary depending on the clarity of the message , both in diction and if there is a lot of background noise or interruptions when recording the audio. However, it is a very useful tool for those times when we cannot listen to a voice message, or simply do not want to.
This feature is now rolling out to all Android users. If you haven’t received it yet, it will be available on your device very soon.