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Convert WAV to Text

Interviews, calls, studio takes. Any length, files up to 4 GB, in 99 languages. Free, no sign-up.

No file handy?

  • Free, no limits
  • No sign-up
  • Audio & video

How to get text from a WAV file

  1. 1. Add your file. Drop a WAV file on the box above, or click it to pick one from your device.
  2. 2. Press Transcribe. The first time, the speech model downloads to your browser and is saved for next time. Then the text shows up in the editor.
  3. 3. Copy or export. Fix anything that looks off, then copy the text or download it as TXT, PDF, Word, SRT or VTT.

Transcribe a WAV file

WAV is uncompressed audio, the format of field recorders, studio sessions, call-recording software and lots of interview audio. TextFromAudio reads the WAV directly and returns the words as text. Drop the file in, press Transcribe, and edit the result in the page.

The free mode has no limits: no cap on file length, number of files or languages. It uses lighter speech models, so it is a little slower and less accurate than Pro.

Big WAV files are fine

An hour of WAV can be hundreds of megabytes. Because the file is read from your own device rather than uploaded, its size does not cost you any upload time. Files up to 4 GB are accepted. A long recording takes longer to process, so a computer is a better choice than a phone for those.

Do you need a high sample rate?

No. Speech recognition works on mono audio at a low sample rate. A 48 kHz or 24-bit WAV is converted down to that before it is read, so the extra resolution does not make the transcript better. You can leave your recording as it is and skip the step of converting it to MP3 first.

What does change the result:

  • Clear voices close to the microphone.
  • Little background noise and room echo.
  • One person speaking at a time.
  • A track that has sound. If we find no audio, we tell you.

What people transcribe from WAV

Interviews and research. Record at full quality, then turn the conversation into text you can quote and search.

Calls and meetings. Call-recording tools often save WAV.

Studio and podcast sessions. Get a rough transcript of a raw take for show notes or captions.

Archive audio. Old tapes that were digitised to WAV can be read as text.

Edit and export

Click any line to fix it, switch timestamps on to see where each line starts, and click a line to play the audio from there. Copy the text or download TXT, SRT or VTT.

Prefer a smaller file? MP3 to text and M4A to text work the same way.

FAQ

Can I convert a WAV file to text for free?

Yes. No sign-up, no watermark, and no cap on length, number of files or languages. The free mode uses lighter speech models, so it is a bit slower and less accurate than Pro.

Do I need to convert my WAV to MP3 first?

No. Drop the WAV in as it is. We read the audio and convert it to the format the speech model needs, so there is no extra step and no quality lost to a second compression.

My WAV file is huge. Is that a problem?

WAV is uncompressed, so an hour of audio can be several hundred MB. Files up to 4 GB work, and the file is read from your device instead of being uploaded, so size doesn't cost you upload time.

Will a higher sample rate or bit depth give a better transcript?

Not really. Speech models work on mono audio at a low sample rate, so a 48 kHz or 24-bit recording is brought down before it is read. Clear voices, little noise and no overlapping speakers matter far more.

Is my WAV file uploaded?

Not in the free mode. The speech model runs in your browser, on your own device. In Pro, your file is processed on our servers and deleted automatically afterwards.

Audio to text by file type