WhatsApp announced on Thursday that it would publish transcripts of audio messages. The Meta-owned company says the new feature is useful when you're on the move or in a noisy place where you can't hear voice messages. A similar feature was announced last year in Apple's Messages app, a competitor to WhatsApp, with the release of Apple's software update, iOS 17.
This new feature allows you to transcribe your voice messages to text, so you can continue the conversation even if you can't (or perhaps don't want to) listen to your voice messages. WhatsApp claims that the transcript is generated on your device and no one else can read it.
To access new WhatsApp features, go to Settings,[チャット]Select a section and[音声メッセージのトランスクリプト]You must tap to turn on the feature. From there, you can choose your transcription language.
Image credit: WhatsApp
Once you turn on this feature, you can get a transcription of your voice message by long-pressing it and tapping the “Transcription” option. That is, it does not automatically post all messages.
The company says voice message transcripts will be rolled out globally in select languages in the coming weeks.
On iOS, supported languages vary by OS. For iOS 16 and later, supported languages include English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic . If you're using iOS 17 or later, supported languages include Danish, Finnish, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Hebrew, and Thai.
If you have Android, you can access transcripts in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian.
WhatsApp plans to add support for other languages in the coming months.