What people bring to transcribe
54% files, 45% links. M4A and MP3 lead the uploads; YouTube leads the links. Formats, sources, file sizes and devices from 5,299 real jobs.
The short answer
54% of what people bring to WhipScribe is an uploaded file and 45% a link; M4A and MP3 are 68% of uploads, and YouTube is 45% of links.
Production record, 28 July 2026 to 25 October 2026. Quote with the date.
File or link
5,299 jobs. A link is fetched by WhipScribe from the source, so nothing is uploaded; a microphone recording is made in the browser.
Uploaded formats
| Format | Files | Share of files | Audio hours | Share of hours | Size per audio hour (median) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M4A | 679 | 35.1% | 471 | 40.8% | 58 MB |
| MP3 | 642 | 33.2% | 342 | 29.7% | 58 MB |
| MP4 | 351 | 18.1% | 209 | 18.1% | 303 MB |
| WAV | 89 | 4.6% | 47 | 4.0% | 346 MB |
| OGG | 41 | 2.1% | 12 | 1.1% | 40 MB |
| MOV | 37 | 1.9% | 4 | 0.4% | 1,037 MB |
| AAC | 20 | 1.0% | 14 | 1.2% | 44 MB |
| other formats | 75 | 3.9% | 55 | 4.8% | – |
1,934 finished uploads of a minute or more. Size per hour is what people actually uploaded: M4A 58 MB an hour, MP3 58 MB an hour, MP4 303 MB an hour, WAV 346 MB an hour, MOV 1,037 MB an hour. Only the soundtrack of a video is transcribed.
Where links come from
| Site | Links | Share |
|---|---|---|
| youtube.com | 1,069 | 44.8% |
| Google Drive | 138 | 5.8% |
| archive.org | 79 | 3.3% |
| Apple Podcasts | 45 | 1.9% |
| Wikimedia | 38 | 1.6% |
| other sites | 1,018 | 42.6% |
2,387 links. Sites with fewer than 20 links or 5 accounts are grouped as "other sites". Site names describe where a link pointed; WhipScribe is not affiliated with them.
Devices
Device type
Operating system
2,581 jobs whose visit was matched to a browser, through 13 October 2026 (the device match is refreshed separately from the job record). 37% of these jobs started on a phone.
Method
Source: the WhipScribe production job record, every job created from 28 July 2026 to 25 October 2026 (90 days, UTC). 7,417 jobs were created; 1,856 were removed as internal, test or direct API traffic (a few integrations submit in batches and would weigh one account like hundreds), and each account counts for at most its first 20 jobs (262 jobs over that cap left out). That leaves 5,299 jobs from 4,107 accounts, 3,469 of them finished recordings of a minute or more. Format is the uploaded file's extension; link site is the host of the pasted address, named only from a fixed list of common sources.
Privacy: aggregates only. Every row shown stands on at least 20 jobs from at least 5 different accounts; smaller groups are folded into "other" or left out. No name, e-mail, file name, link or transcript text was read into the figures. Computed by scripts/research_production.py, measured 26 October 2026.
Questions
What file formats do people upload for transcription?
In the 90 days to 25 October 2026: M4A 35%, MP3 33%, MP4 18%, WAV 5% of uploaded files.
Do more people upload files or paste links?
Uploads are 54% of jobs and links 45%.
Which formats does WhipScribe accept?
Any common audio or video file up to 10 hours or 5 GB, or a link to a public recording; only the audio track is transcribed.
Cite this
WhipScribe, "What people bring to transcribe: formats, links and devices", production data 28 July 2026 to 25 October 2026, measured 26 October 2026. https://whipscribe.com/proof/what-people-bring
Free to quote and chart with that line (CC BY 4.0). Raw figures: /proof/what-people-bring.json.
More from the production record: how long recordings are · languages people transcribe · how much of a recording is speech · when people transcribe · how fast it transcribes · all proof pages · fact sheet.
See also: Transcription services · Turnaround time · Evidence log · Pricing · Privacy · Terms