🔉 How to Convert Audio to Text - FREE & No Time Limits

In this step-by-step tutorial, learn how you can convert recorded speech or voices into text for free and with no time limitations. To transcribe audio to text, we use the Windows 10 Dictation tool and combine it with a virtual audio cable. This audio to text converter works surprisingly well and doesn't cost anything. For this voice to text converter, you need to connect your computer to the internet. Windows Dictation currently supports the following languages:
- Simplified Chinese
- English
- French
- German
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Spanish
You can also use this technique to convert audio to text using Google Docs Voice Typing (CTRL + Shift + S) or Microsoft Word Dictation. Both work very well.
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👋 Additional resources
- How to transcribe documents using Word Online (requires a Microsoft 365 subscription): • How to Transcribe Audi...
- Virtual Audio Cable: vb-audio.com/C...
⌚ Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
0:31 Set up Windows Dictation tool
1:43 Get virtual audio cable
2:16 Configure sound settings
3:22 Convert audio to text
4:37 Wrap up
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#stratvert

[@KevinStratvert]

A newer version of this video shows you how to convert an entire mp3, wav, or mp4 directly to text using Whisper AI (high quality, free & no install): kzbin.info/www/bejne/boS0h2B4bZinhrc

[@ImageEnhance]

Thanks for sharing, thumbs up!!!

[@multivida5504]

sir kevin, i can't install the driver after downloaded, please help

[@gauravmagre9959]

I want to change language ..how to change

[@user-cm3vr3ih1h]

thank you

[@childmoon7585]

Thanks! Why does Google Voice typing stop working after 5 minutes on PC? (I clear browser cache, cookies and history and reboot my computer ).

[@spocksvulcanbrain]

I was watching a live chat/video a few weeks ago (June 2022) and in the chat was a comment from a deaf person saying he was sorry he couldn't hear the hosts since there was no CC yet. I wanted to tell him about this setup but couldn't remember it. I've bookmarked it for next time I see him on. Thanks Kevin, you really don't know how often your video tips help so many you've never met. Keep up the great work.

[@eugheniat.2121]

I love that you cover tools that all PC users already have. Thank you for your professionalism 👏🏼. I find your videos the most clear and concise.

[@viktoriatheswede]

You are a LIFESAVER! I forgot to put on my 'dictate' as I recorded, and found myself with ten recordings and no text. I don't have the 'upload audio file' option on word, and the "solution" to that was way too complicated for me to grasp. And re-recording/dictating it all a second time wasn't too appealing... Found your video, downloaded Virtual Audio Cable and now it works like a charm. The podcastepisodes for this year are saved 🙏.

[@anthonygikuri]

Kelvin, did you ever imagine there are more people in Tanzania benefitting from your videos. Every time I see your new post, I know there's something to expect . Asante

[@_alphin_joe]

This will help me a lot in my work because instead of voice typing 🎤 I could record my Audio🔊 and transcribe it to text.

[@makgeoff]

This is good & free! Excellent recommendations & always clear & precise instructions Kevin! 👍 For viewers who are not very computer savvy, you may want to add back 1 little step as VB Audio Cable needs to be installed in Administrator environment & need to go to command prompt to run this. 😉

[@MarjoSuico]

so, how do I install it?

[@aliciaadler6108]

@@MarjoSuico I had the same problem. I right-clicked on the setup application file and went to run as administrator.

[@alexleong9579]

Please kindly explain further on "...add back 1 little step as VB Audio Cable needs to be installed in Administrator environment & need to go to command prompt to run this." There are 3 (exe) execution files. When I click "run as administrator" on "VBCABLE_ControlPanel.exe" and "VBCABLE_Setup_x64.exe" - after clicking yes to install, it doesn't install, error message. When I click "run as administrator" on "VBCABLE_Setup.exe" - after click yes to install, nothing happens. Please help.

[@edtsch]

Thank you for this! I'm finding that the Google Docs Voice Typing is doing a better job of hanging on. The Windows dictation was just stopping from time to time on its own. One thing that amazes me is that there isn't some open source tool that you can use to just input an mp3 file and output its best guess at the transcript. It doesn't seem like we should have to resort of an internal virtual cable!

[@Firemedicbill911]

Kevin, I really appreciate your videos, I’m at the age where technology has overwhelmed me! Lol However your complete step by step allows even simple me to understand. Thanks my friend.

[@BillAnt]

Never too late for and "old dog to learn new tricks" ey?! ;)

[@TylerStanczak]

Oh this is very helpful. I am going to try this out :)

[@LearningwithMrsOkoro]

Right on time. This was on my list of things to figure out.

[@EverydayWorkshop]

Another great and very useful video Kevin. Your videos are so helpful, especially to someone who’s of a certain age and a little technically challenged. So thank you for your all your help and keep producing the awesome content.

[@Jaa_morant]

guys are there any free audiofiles to text converters???

[@SavageGothamChess]

Always wanted to know this. Another great video Kevin. That thumbnail is just insane!

[@brandedperfume8363]

Very good video

[@felipelima4548]

You are amazing ! I'll only tell to add something. You have to previously install the language you want to translate on your O.S such as if you want to transcribe a Italian voice just install the italian language on your machine and then for any other language you wants either.

[@sunshinewolf5980]

You provide great value as always, Kevin! No skipping ads for you! :)

[@JimSamuel267]

I got it to work fine using a handheld recorder. I copied the recorded MP3 to my PC, then played it using VLC. The only catch is that it takes a couple of seconds to hit the apps in the correct order to start. If you are recording for dictation, it's a good idea to leave a 3 to 5 second buffer at the start to give you time to get everything started.

[@coachtscorner2994]

I agree with those that commented that you are a lifesaver! This process has saved me hours of stress and frustration! Kudos to you my man! It is a pleasure to know that there are still people out there that truly just want to help and make lives better.

[@ajmal48911]

as a person who constantly has to type emails for 8 hours adl day, you may have saved my fingers! thank you so much for this

[@DhanushMunasinghe2008]

Kevin this video is really awesome. And also I loved the way when you said let's jump on the pc not literally 0:27

[@KevinStratvert]

😂

[@beaufortcorporateservicesp5525]

Hi Kevin, I followed your setup, but it translated only a few words, then the microphone stopped listening. How can I get it to keep listening for the translation to work? Thanks for your guidance.

[@adaml9719]

Yeah I agree I’ve tried both Google and windows and they both stopped listening if there is a pause for a second is there any work around @kevin

[@Rahulrahul-cz2tn]

Did u get any solution for this issue ??

[@adaml9719]

@@Rahulrahul-cz2tn nope. Where’s the guy who posted the video? Surely he should know about this huge flaw in his advice

[@togafighter6812]

True, it stopped recording and there is not any fix available.

[@Kazangian]

Thanks Kevin, as usual it is very useful tips. But I am facing some difficulties with Windows 11 to change the output and input settings.

[@keyquestions]

You deserve every level of success you've earned. I can't believe I've ton my hair out likely for years trying to solve this problem and every single solution I have found (probably millions, always had a catch or never worked), and here you are just giving away what might be the greatest secret on earth. God bless you Kevin, you can't imagine just how grateful I truly am for this and your video on converting mp4 to mp3 using VLC! You're a priceless gem to the online community! Thank you again, PS: I subscribed to your email newsletter and will likely open every email I see from you, keep the good stuff coming! Take care!

[@robinbesotes3884]

In theory, this is great! I got it to translate a few sentences of a non-profits minutes then nothing. I had high hopes! Glad it worked for others.

[@romikitten]

Thank you soo much!!! I use this technique for all my recorded lectures for university. I'd always rather read instead of listening to the lectures. Your video is a big help!

[@TechnologyAviation]

Thanks Kevin!! This is very useful especially at school, when I can use the second tool on teams to write notes quickly!

[@cbaide100]

Thank you so much Kevin. Your channel is my primary source for keeping me up to date with technology. I enjoy your videos, they are of a superb quality in every sense.

[@KevinStratvert]

Awesome, thank you!

[@VairalKE]

Thank you. I had some elders with amazing history that needed to be recorded. Much love from Kenya!

[@rarstorm]

Thank you so much. I was looking for several months on how to connect my phone directly to my pc and transcribe audio from my phone. I loved it ❤

[@mornemail1031]

Hey Kevin. I like the way that you've slowed down your presentation of concepts. In the past you spoke fairly rapidly, and I needed to be sharp on the pause and rewind button to be able to understand what you just said and contextualise it. Your videos are improving all the time. Great job. 👍

[@JeanClaudeMartin]

Thank you Kevin for this video. It works fine when I dictate a text. But when I play one of my videos, using Cable Input, it captures only a few sentences and stops. I have used it with NotePad and Word and it is the same thing

[@Stevenx01]

same here

[@katypepptalk5787]

Same for me.

[@theinvasionking1987]

Same

[@AM-tk1on]

same here!!

[@amritaanshsharan2862]

Thank you bro, I was racking my brains with complicated A.I. software. I knew there was something simple out there. Keep providing simple tools.

[@amyzeldigitalstv]

Kevin, you are too good. You are giving me so much joy and hope of making it big online. I wish I could take all your brain!

[@bltenismadrid]

Hi Kevin, thanks for this great video. Unfortunately it does not work as expected, probably due to the fact that I use English, German and Spanish in all apps. Maybe you could create something to help international language setup. I know quite some people who struggle with that, especially automatic corrections, etc. - Thanks again for your great channel!

[@Lorigam16]

Yet another highly valuable and awesome video. Thanks so much, Kevin! QQ: do you know anything about the AI associated with this functionality? I ask because I am sometimes in meetings where people talk about yet-to-be-released features, and I have trouble keeping up/taking notes. We are not allowed to record, due to the confidential nature of the meeting. Wondering if I could transcribe on the fly as you have just taught me, or if there is some risk that the info be compromised through AI? (this type of meeting is rare for me, so in general, i will be able to use this---just wondering about those corner cases). THANKS for all you do!

[@articraftic]

OpenAI Whisper

[@sethsponhower]

I have watched your video several times and then did everything you say to do and I got the speech to text to work great, and then I needed to know that I could shut everything down (for the night) and be able to come back later and reactivate everything and pick back up where I left off. After the first time, it has not worked right. When I shut down and started back up and opened the mic and my document, it didn't work the same, it would only work for about 30 seconds and then stop listening in mid-sentence. I restarted several times with the same results, just quits listening and transcribing after about 20-30 seconds. Hitting the Windows+H opens the same microphone bar as you get opening up the on-screen keyboard, and that one WILL transcribe words from my speech, which is what I was using, and it is pretty accurate! But, when I plug my microphone head set in after turning on my laptop, I get the rounded audio box automatically comes up and its crap!! I'll speak into it and it will ONLY print consonants and numbers!!! Now words or even vowels!!! I played around with it trying to figure what it is doing or not doing to cause it to be so dysfunctional. Example; if I say "running", I might get an 'r' and possible an 'n' but will almost definitely get a 'g' from the end of the word!!! It WILL NOT print out a full word, just a few letters, and a number character, won't even spell out numbers. And every time I have done this, it NEVER puts out a vowel. Totally baffling!!! I've spent over an hour yesterday and again today with both of these variations, trying to figure out why these things are doing this to me!!! (Why me?!!! Ha! Ha!) I even downloaded and set up the VB Cable driver and started getting it to transcribe a video I have been working on transcribing for a while (its 6.5 hours long and I'm 2 hours into it self-transcribing and it has taken me over 3 long days to get this much done, that is why I am trying to figure this out) but it quit after 30 seconds or so, and had to back up the video to where it stopped, start it again, and it quits a little bit later. I can't get the driver or microphone to keep on going on its own. This is really frustrating!!! I have court issues over my kids coming up and I really need to get these audio files into text to be able to extrapolate the info I need for my court papers!!!! I have also gone thru the microphone set up several times, done the voice recognition training session 4 times now, and again, only the Windows+H mic will work right, the other just sucks!!! I'm fairly familiar and understood with computers and some of these driver and program things, but I obviously don't know enough to figure out what the problem is. My laptop is a Gateway and is just over 2 years old, has Windows 10 and I have never had a problem with it. I'm at a loss and don't know that I can get what I need to do done in the next 2 weeks without getting this figured out! If you can help, throw me some ideas of what I need to check or maybe change that is causing my problem, would be GREATLY appreciated!! I have a lot of frustrating things going on in my life and I don't need this, plus this is my path to rectifying my situation, and I feel it slipping out of my hands!! I can't afford to be going out and buying another computer right now, so I am stuck having to get this figured out! Thanks for your time and making this video! (I hope I was able to clearly explain my situation!)

[@celerywarrior6493]

I think you are losing/don't have a connection to the internet while it is transcribing. If I unplug my ethernet cable while it is transcribing it does something similar to what you are describing.

[@defaultpoe]

Youre brilliant man!! This is exactly what i was looking for..

[@albaraaali7690]

this is one of the best techniques to convert audio to text and it's 90%+ accurate, very helpful in making transcripts and getting max benefits from videos and recordings thanks you so much

[@johncheung4905]

Hi Kevin, as always, I find your tutorials very informative and easy to follow. That said, I would like to do the opposite, i.e., change text to speech for free. Specifically I have some Chinese text, I would like to change it to Cantonese. Please do a tutorial on this. I appreciate it.

[@KevinStratvert]

Thanks for the suggestion! I've added this to my list. Stay tuned. Cheers!

[@nacnud_]

Text to speech is a standard feature of all modern operating systems, including your phone. You can use the "read aloud" function in Microsoft word, for instance. Or a screen reader accessibility program, if you just want to hear the text. Google for "text to speech" and you'll be off and running 👍

[@brianmonarchcomedy]

Great solution! Just used it :)

[@purposedrivenrecoveryacademy]

I just held up my phone to the microphone on my computer and it typed out whatever I played perfectly. Thanks so much for thsi!

[@MayKabuluhan]

I wish I had this when I was still a student!!!

[@KevinStratvert]

😂

[@CyclingCornwall]

Awesome thank you for doing these videos , I am not tech savvy so wouldnt manage to do these great things without help from you and others that take the time and put in the effort .

[@spydrmedia]

Liked, downloaded, subscribed, commented! Dude this is the 2nd time u give a no BS tutorial on something on how to use content creation tools. I still use the OBS/Web Cam viewer trick u taught me last year to screen record and show my face. I just signed up to Otter, was about pay, then I saw your video at the last minute now I know WIndows 10 has a FREE, UNLIMITED, BUILT IN audio to text converter. I was nearly ripped of. Bro you are the best, much respekt from kraaaazy South Afrika...

[@samuelanyaele1133]

This saved me moments ago in the office. I needed to transcribe a meeting and it did the job for me. Thank you so so much😇. You just got a new subscriber

[@yourpalfranc]

Fun project. All the virtual cable installation went well, and I was able to capture audio from your KZbin, but it will only capture maybe 30 words then it dies??? Any help?? Thanks! ~Frank

[@rumblemovies7213]

I experienced same problem. getting better when my internet connection improve. it seem word process by internet help.

[@indobo3678]

Using vps/rdp for better network connection bruhhh 😁

[@AM-dn4lk]

I thought this was awesome, until I tried it. I ran it against several short KZbin clips and the performace was horrible. Most of the time the dictation tool would stop listening after a few seconds. The other times it simply would not write any text in notepad. With a slow patient voice in a microphone, the translation is tolerable, if you dont mind fixing plenty of glitches. I have used paid online tools and the translation to text has been quite good.

[@KevinStratvert]

Try this technique with Google Docs Voice typing instead. I found that it stays on more consistently.

[@Paper_and_Fabric]

@@KevinStratvert by chance did you make a video tutorial of this technique? Thank you

[@jaycarlton2010]

I've been looking for something like this for several years. THANKS!!!!

[@SCHaworth]

I didnt need the whole video, I forgot about dictation tool. And I realized exactly where you were going when you mentioned "virtual audio cable" This was actually EXTREMELY helpful nonetheless. Thank you very very much.

[@usd741]

Your tip saved me hours of boring routine. Thank you so much!

[@prabhatrao4325]

Just at the nick of time. I had been hunting for this real bad with no decent success. You are a saviour. Thanks so much.

[@ErikWarsaw13]

I only needed the information from the first one third of the video and it completely saved me an immense amount of time. Big thank you to video maker.

[@robboates2301]

Oh, I worked on trying to figure this out and just listened to hours live from a speaker. This is also a way to record the dictation confidential to the room around it , as opposed to having a listening device transcribe through the air from a recording.

[@jitupatel3629]

Thank you for making life easier, as sometime, I need text what speaker is speaking. Once again, Thank you

[@clearcuthair745]

Thanks Kevin for your very useful explanation - got windows 11 so found Microsoft's 'How to use Voice Typing Tool in Windows 11' so were in business. Cheers Ron

[@eunofosua]

Thank you Kevin for this tutorial and software recommendation. I tried it out but it appears my Windows 10 Dictation tool stops every 5 minutes. Is that how it's suppose to work? I was converting recorded voices (30 minutes long) to text.

[@happysoul7940]

it works. need to pause a bit though. transcriber need to catch up with the video audio. Thanks for this idea kevin. God bless.

[@hasnainkhaliq5056]

This is fantastic. Saved me hours of manually transcribing videos. 😀

[@saminasmehndi]

*_Hi Kevin_* *_Your Videos are Awesome_* *_Bundle of Thanks & Great Love From Pak_*

[@laurice8056]

If we can edit our audio files and use it to create an audio book, this is a Game Changer! Thanks for sharing!

[@JMBrevelle]

This is wonderful! I needed to convert several interveiews and didn't want to buy software or rent it by the minute. This totally solved my problem. You are a wizard!

[@devzdalisay313]

wow this is really amazing!! thank you so much for sharing!!

[@jmainex]

Wow, that actually worked!...thanks mate!!

[@peak4028]

This is great. I was looking for a simple free solution for this. Thank you!

[@MobileExperienceChris]

A BIG thumbs up for this video. I have over 300 audio files I need to transcribe. This will save me several hundred $dollars, so I don't have to pay a transcription service. Thank you!

[@NoahtheGameplayer]

dude this is freaking amazing now, now i don't have to type anymore ever since i have this awesome futured you shared with us, and now i can comment a lot more easier now instead of typing, LOL, thanks a lot man, really appreciate it :D

[@Synthious]

This has absolutely saved my butt in online course note taking, thank you!!

[@coolkillerr]

so far the best video i seen for audio translation

[@RuthyLachmanPaul]

YES, Great job. I love your videos and it what I needed today.

[@andrewiansummers]

Thanks Kevin, you've just saved me hours of typing!!

[@LimousineIndianapol1]

great trick! makes work so much faster for adding subtitles and captions!

[@lipiiebanerjjee]

Thank you so much. It was so easy on my Macbook. I used Microsoft word dictation.

[@IAmDeAudra]

Had to come to YT to his the 👍🏾 The video was so easy to find and this method is so simple.

[@boydasmith]

It's adequate,.. but has couple of problems. First, I can NOT hear the audio when recording,... which probably doesn't matter. But the inconsistent, Iinadvertant STOPPING by the Windows Dictation-Tool is abit of a problem, and it does it quite frequently! It's exascerbated by the fact I can't HEAR when it stops, and have to search the video to pick-up where it stopped from? Maybe you have an idea of how to correct the frequent stopping by the dictation-tool? Other than that it's great for what I'm doing,.. except it would be nice if it had time stamps for SRT files to add subtitles later. Thanks very much for showing how VB-cable is set-up, and how it works!

[@rayfellers]

In Windows 10 (64 bit) be sure to run the 64 bit app installation as administrator. This video says there is no time limit but my system stops listening frequently so I have to click the microphone to start the dictation recording. I've been trying to make this work efficiently but without much luck. Any ad popup stops the recording. If the speaker is talking fast, the transcription can't keep up. (I'm using an Intel I5 processor and plenty of memory.) Setting the video to run at 0.75 speed helps some. I can probably get equally good results by making a copy of the transcript that KZbin supplies with many videos.

[@Sandroider]

Thanks! One should use YT's own open transcript function, but this great for other applications.

[@aeronjarrett5897]

This worked very smoothly for me. However, I did my work in a virtual machine to guard against my qualms about trusting the vb-audio cable thingie!

[@princesshan4496]

I will try this out in a few days. I'm the club secretary in my university faculty club. And this is going to be very helpful considering I'm very weak in writing minutes. Plus the committee speaks in mix languages and it's difficult for me to translate it. Thank you so much!

[@shawnnelson1669]

You are awesome Kevin. Thanks so much for the video.

[@makgeoff]

Hi Kevin, I noticed that currently, in Word, once I started the transcribing & I move to another APP the transcribing will stop. Is there a way to do the transcribing in background while I use the computer to do other things?

[@nennii100]

Thank you for making this video!! you have saved me so much time!

[@martas.1900]

That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you sooooo much!!!

[@sethsponhower]

I say "Start Listening" because that is what it says to say in the Speech Recognition Card page. I get a sentence out and say "period" and then start speaking the next sentence and it stops a few words in. The box in the round window comes up saying "What was that?" I just switched it back to the on-screen keyboard mic and tried it again and noticed after speaking and it stopping the same way that it does say in the text box above the keyboard to say "Start Spelling"! Why do they give different information on the website?! Doesn't keep things consistent!! I have to take off and do some things for a bit and then I will be back and I will play with it some more using "Start Spelling" and see if that makes any difference and take some detailed notes as to what it is doing. I GREATLY appreciate you responding so fast, sooner than I expected!!! I'll be back later!

[@owl4115]

Once I change the sound setting output and input to the VB cable, the audio I'm trying to transcribe stops playing, even this video. Any thoughts?

[@mcube7396]

Thanks a lot, I tried many apps and different techniques but finally this work for long form video-to-text.💯💯

[@mariamhasan3099]

Super for doing the minutes. Really like the step by step instructions

[@kaiyenchee6596]

Thank you for the tips. May I know how to switch to another languages?

[@Orthodixie]

Excellent video. Installed this as you directed. Instructions clear, as always. Problem is, the microphone quits listening about every 2-3 minutes. I have to sit there and click it to get it to start listening again. Help!

[@usshanchia480]

Awesome. Testing it now. Thanks for sharing

[@bubbaandthebeans]

I did not have much success with the Windows voice dictation. It kept stopping after about one sentence, even though the video was still playing. I was on the verge of giving up, when I tried using the dictate in Word (I know there is a dirty joke here).... and GREAT SUCCESS!!

[@josefpausch3771]

Worked great, awesome job. thanks. Keep the videos coming

[@lyricalworld9074]

Finally I have subscribed ur channel which is something special than others... True information..Tq hope for better growth bro.

[@JVFIXLLC]

thanks so much for this video it helped me a lot man. keep up the great work.

[@JustBlankNoInfo]

Really good one...let's jump on the pc not literally! Ha, you nailed the pin there. This is just another type of voice message, where you see the voice message as text. Really time-saving. But it took me too much time to read the text in the thumbnail around the speaker...That made it time-consuming. Really good thumbnail overall.

[@elisabebiano6529]

You have no ideia how much you helped me with this. Thank you so much

[@TS175]

Hello, is there any way I can actually hear the recording while it's transcribing? thanks for sharing and take care.

[@lifebeyondlimitsrock]

Awesome Kevin, it worked like a charm and you have helped me to place some key information into my new book in a breeze. Instead of having to write down everything I said in one of my youtube videos at Life Beyond Limits. Thank you!

[@SwirlybitzSwirlsTV]

Wow… i’m amazed with this tutorial..thanks so much!

[@VenkatachalamRavindran]

Excellent video. Thanks for showing how to use existing Dictation tool to transcribe any audio.

[@dorrystunningmiracles3800]

You are super awesome Kevin making life easy & you are a blessing thank you so much for helping &keep helping!

[@Fylosofy_]

Thank you so much this is exactly what I needed and I used the speech to text to say this by the way. :)