Transcribe long Voice Memos on a Mac drag it out, drop it in.
To transcribe a long memo from Voice Memos on a Mac, drag it from the app to the desktop or Finder and drop it in the box here; a 3-hour seminar comes back in about 6 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free, and ten 3-hour memos (1,800 minutes) fit the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes.
From the memo list to a document
The Mac recorded the seminar while you took notes. Now the notes can be complete.
Getting the memo out
In Voice Memos, drag a recording from the list onto the desktop or a Finder window; the Share button can also save or send it, depending on your macOS version. The copy is usually an M4A file, or a lossless file if you changed the audio quality setting. Then drop it into the box above.
iPhone memos on the Mac
With iCloud turned on for Voice Memos, recordings made on an iPhone appear on the Mac too, so an interview recorded on the phone can be dragged out at the desk. That avoids sending a large file from the phone over a mobile connection.
Size and the bigger upload
Compressed memos are small, a few dozen MB an hour, so even a full day fits the 500 MB this box takes. A lossless memo grows faster; if one passes 500 MB, upload it on upload page, which takes one file up to 10 hours or 5 GB.
A month of memos, costed
Ten 3-hour seminars recorded in a month are 1,800 minutes and use the $12 pack of 2,000. A writer who records one 90-minute interview a month uses 270 minutes a quarter, well inside the $6 pack of 500.
Long memos elsewhere
Voice Memos records anything. Getting through three hours of it is another job.
✗ Sitting in the app
A waveform and a play button.
- Dragging the playhead to find a quote
- Memos titled with a street name and a date
- OpenAI's Whisper API rejects files above 25 MB
- Notes typed while half listening
- No search across past memos
- Hours of replay before a deadline
✓ Dragged out and transcribed
A seminar you can search like a document.
- 3 hours back in about 6 minutes
- Ten seminars on the $12 pack
- Chapters by topic, timestamped
- Names, figures and dates listed
- DOCX for the write-up
- Chat to find a quote
Sample
A long memo recorded on a Mac, as it comes back.
Written for this page as an illustration; it comes from no real seminar. Timestamps follow a 3-hour recording.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Voice Memos on Mac, the common questions.
Where does Voice Memos keep its files on a Mac?
Inside the app's library folder, which macOS hides and which changes between versions. Dragging the memo out of the app is simpler and leaves the original where it is.
Will an M4A memo upload as it is?
Yes, M4A uploads without conversion, and so do most lossless memos. If a file is refused, export it as MP3 and upload the copy.
How fast is a long memo transcribed?
Roughly 2 minutes for each hour of audio. The proof page shows 9.31 hours finished in 1,033 seconds.
Is there a length limit?
One file up to 10 hours or 5 GB, and up to 2 GB before the first pack. A memo longer than 10 hours is uploaded as two files.
What does it cost?
The first 20 minutes are free on a first visit. A memo up to 20 minutes transcribes in full; a longer one is previewed and a pack from $6 transcribes the rest from where the preview stopped.
Which downloads are there, and is the memo private?
Five exports: TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Transcription runs on our own servers, and your recordings are never used to train anything. There is no Mac app or plugin to install; the upload happens in your browser.
Related
More Mac and iPhone pages
Drag the memo out and drop it in. Your first 20 minutes cost nothing.
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