Love them or hate them, voice notes are here to stay. Rather than typing out long messages, many of us have taken to recording audio clips of us chatting and sending them to friends and family. It’s the twenty-first century’s version of the answerphone message, and is available in most modern texting apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
The problem is if you get an especially long voice note from someone it can be difficult to reply. Either the note is minutes long, meaning you have to listen to it several times in order to reply, or you’re simply not in a place you can listen to it in the first place. Whether that’s in a meeting or on a loud bus when you’ve forgotten your headphones, the downfalls of voice notes are obvious.
You might also simply prefer to type your reply out rather than reply with a voice note.
WhatsApp seems to have recognised this and is pushing out a big free update worldwide to address it. Starting today, WhatsApp is being updated to include voice message transcripts, a feature that will securely scan the audio in a voice message and then transcribe it for you to read.
“Transcripts are generated on your device so that no one else, not even WhatsApp, can hear or read your personal messages,” WhatsApp said.
To see if you have the new voice messages transcript feature, head to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, search for WhatsApp, then tap update if indeed there is an update waiting for you.
Then open WhatsApp and head to Settings > Chats > Voice Message Transcripts. If it’s there, you can toggle it on or off.
If it’s not there, sit tight, it should appear soon.
“Transcripts are rolling out globally over the coming weeks with a few select languages to start though we plan to add more over the coming months,” according to WhatsApp.
The supported languages are English, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, and Hindi, for now. The app should prompt you to select your transcript language when you first turn the tool on, and it’ll automatically download the language pack to your phone so that it will work properly.
If you have everything set up and running, you’ll be able to tap on a little downward pointing arrow on message boxes in chats where you’ve been sent a voice note, which should open the transcript for you to read.
So, if you’ve been dreading receiving a lengthy voice message, this free update could help you read your way to a reply. And if you’re a serial voice note sender, now your loved ones will be able to digest your messages that little bit easier.