WhatsApp developers started rolling out a new feature that will help users read voice messages when hearing them is not an option. Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, announced the latest feature on the official WhatsApp blog:
Sending a voice message makes connecting with friends and family even more personal. There’s something special about hearing your loved one’s voice even when you’re far away. Though sometimes, you’re on the move, in a loud place, or you receive a long voice message that you just can’t stop and listen.
For those moments we’re excited to introduce voice message transcripts. Voice messages can be transcribed into text to help you keep up with conversations no matter what you’re doing.
Voice message transcripts in WhatsApp can turn any voice message into regular text with on-device processing for extra privacy. WhatsApp claims, "no one else can hear or read your personal messages."
WhatsApp says voice message transcripts are gradually rolling out, which means all users should get access to the feature in the coming weeks. Unlike other browsers, such as Telegram, where transcripts are only available to paid subscribers, voice-to-text in WhatsApp is available to all users for free.
However, it is worth noting that very few languages are currently supported. According to the official WhatsApp documentation, you can only transcribe voice messages in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. If you want to turn the feature on, go to Settings > Chats > Voice Messages Transcripts and select your preferred language.
WhatsApp also adds that in certain scenarios, you might receive the "Transcript unavailable error" even when attempting to convert a message. That might be due to unsupported language, background noise, unrecognized words, etc. You can learn more about using voice message transcripts in WhatsApp in a support article via this link.
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