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Old radio shows, oral histories, lectures, court audio and LibriVox readings on archive.org rarely come with a transcript. Paste the file's link and get searchable, timestamped text you can cite.
The file you have
A link works here. Paste the direct file link in the box above. It is fetched from the Archive's servers, so a two-hour recording does not pass through your connection.
How it works
Choose the format (VBR MP3 is fine) and copy the link of the file you want.
Transcription takes about two minutes per hour of audio after the fetch.
Search names and phrases across the recording and cite each passage by its timestamp.
Good to know
What comes back
The same four things for every Internet Archive recording, whatever its length.
Every line carries its time. Click a line to hear that second again, or search a name or phrase and jump to each place it was said.
A brief with the takeaways, chapters with their start times, and the quotes worth keeping. Speakers are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Ask where a topic came up or what was decided, and get the answer with the time it was said, instead of scrolling the whole text.
TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT, JSON from the same transcript: a document to edit, caption files for video, plain text to paste, structured data for your own tools.
Pricing
A 1 h 50 min interview is 110 minutes, so the $4 pack (500 minutes) covers it 4 times over. Every recording gets a free preview and a summary you can read before paying; a pack opens the full transcript and every export. Packs are one-time purchases with no subscription and no seat fee.
Pick a pack to open secure checkout. Workspace is $19 a month for unlimited transcription (300-hour fair-use mark). Full pricing
1,901 recordings, 830 audio hours, 64 languages detected. An hour of audio came back in 3.7 minutes for half of the recordings and within 19.7 minutes for nine in ten, measured from the moment the file landed to the finished transcript. Refreshed 2026-10-02; method on how we test.
FAQ
On the item's page open Download Options, copy the direct link of the audio or video file, and paste it in the box on this page.
Use the direct file link. An item often contains several recordings, and the file link is the only way to say which one to transcribe.
That depends on the recording's rights, which each item states. Public-domain and openly licensed recordings can be transcribed and shared; for anything else, treat the transcript as your own research notes.
The preview and the summary are free. A pack opens the full transcript: $4 for 500 minutes, $8 for 1,000 minutes, $12 for 2,000 minutes, $24 for 5,000 minutes. Packs are one-time, credits never expire, and Workspace is $19 a month if you transcribe every week.
One file can run up to 10 hours or 5 GB. The box on this page takes files up to 500 MB; a larger file continues on the main upload page, which uploads it in parts. Most recordings come back in about two minutes per hour of audio.
Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training. You can delete a recording and its transcript at any time.
More audio hosting sources: SoundCloud
Related: Transcribe an oral history · Transcribe an audiobook · Transcribe audio from a URL · Academia · Radio station transcription
Every file type, recording and source · All platforms · All file formats · Long recordings · Transcription services
Free preview, no signup to try. Up to 10 hours or 5 GB in one file.
For the recordings and videos it produces: see a video transcription service for uploads and links, an online transcription service with nothing to install and our transcription service with prices and turnaround.