Shotcut · MP3 or WAV export

Transcribe a Shotcut project to text.

WhipScribe transcribes a Shotcut timeline exported as MP3 or WAV and returns an SRT for the Subtitles panel. Packs: $4 for 300 minutes, $18 for 3,000, $32 for 6,000; Workspace $19 a month. Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. Measured turnaround: about 2 minutes per audio hour. 99 languages. Checked 2 Nov 2026.

Free preview of the opening minutes Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file 99+ languages TXT · DOCX · SRT · VTT · JSON

The file you have

What Shotcut gives you, and what to export.

Project file: A .mlt file. It references your clips and cannot be uploaded here.
Export for transcription: In the Export panel pick an audio preset such as MP3 or WAV, then Export File.
Where it lands: Wherever you save it in the Export File dialog.
Typical size: An hour of MP3 is 60–110 MB; WAV is about 600 MB.

There is no link to paste for this one. Get the file onto your phone or computer first, then upload it in the box above.

How it works

Three steps, the first one is the only one that takes any thought.

Export the audio

Open Export, choose an audio preset (MP3 or WAV), make sure From is set to the timeline and click Export File.

Drop the file here

MP3, WAV and an MP4 export all upload as they are.

Import the subtitles

Export SRT from the transcript, open View → Subtitles in Shotcut, and choose Import Subtitles From File from the panel menu with the playhead at the start.

Good to know

What trips people up, and what to do about it.

Put the playhead at 00:00 before importing. Shotcut places imported subtitles at the cursor, so a playhead left mid-timeline shifts every caption.
Export from the Timeline, not a single clip. The From setting in Export decides what is rendered.
Shotcut has a Speech to Text tool in recent versions. Bringing the audio here is useful when you want a summary, DOCX or text to share with people who do not edit.
Subtitles travel inside MP4, MKV and MOV exports when Shotcut embeds them; keep the SRT too for players that need a separate file.

Example. A 45-minute church service edited in Shotcut is exported as a 42 MB MP3. The transcript is back in about a minute and a half; the SRT is imported into the Subtitles panel and burned into the video for the website.

What comes back

More than a wall of text.

The same four things for every Shotcut recording, whatever its length.

A transcript with timestamps

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 summary, chapters and key quotes

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.

Questions answered from the recording

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.

Every export

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

Free preview. Packs from $4, and the minutes never expire.

A 45-minute service is 45 minutes, so the $4 pack (300 minutes) covers it 6 times over. Every recording gets a free preview, and in 31 countries, or for recordings of an hour or more in most others, 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.

$4300 minutesBuy $183,000 minutesBuy $326,000 minutesBuy

Pick a pack to open secure checkout. Workspace is $19 a month for unlimited transcription (300-hour fair-use mark). Full pricing

What we measured, last 30 days

3,332 recordings, 2,490 audio hours, 65 languages detected. An hour of audio came back in 3.1 minutes for half of the recordings and within 17.5 minutes for nine in ten, measured from the moment the file landed to the finished transcript. Refreshed 2026-10-28; method on how we test.

FAQ

Shotcut to text, answered.

Can I upload a Shotcut .mlt project?

No. Export the timeline from the Export panel as MP3, WAV or MP4 and upload that file.

Where is subtitle import in Shotcut?

Open View → Subtitles, then use the Subtitles panel's menu and choose Import Subtitles From File. It needs Shotcut 24.08 or later.

Does the audio-only export give the same transcript?

Yes. The words come from the sound, so an MP3 gives the same result as the video and uploads much faster.

What does transcribing Shotcut recordings cost?

The preview is free, and so is the summary in 31 countries or for recordings of an hour or more. A pack opens the full transcript: $4 for 300 minutes, $18 for 3,000 minutes, $32 for 6,000 minutes. Packs are one-time, credits never expire, and Workspace is $19 a month if you transcribe every week.

How long can the recording be?

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.

Is the recording kept private?

Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training. You can delete a recording and its transcript at any time.