WhatsApp has been busy this year adding a number of features designed to continue making usage of the app easier and more fun and it looks like there is a new feature in town. The platform has officially introduced a new feature that aims to make it easy for people who prefer reading messages rather than listening to voice messages. This comes a few months after various reports came out about WhatsApp working on rolling it out.
The new feature will now turn voice notes into text ” to help you keep up with conversations no matter what you’re doing.” According to WhatsApp, the transcripts are generated on your device so no one, not even WhatsApp, will be able to hear or read your personal messages. The feature will definitely be a welcome addition for users who might receive voice messages in a loud environment or those who want to keep the messages private without having to blast them loud with people around listening.
The feature currently supports multiple languages including English English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian on Android, whereas on iOS 16 they’re joined by French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic and on iOS 17. Users can also expect more languages later such as Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, and Thai.
To activate the feature go to Settings, tap Chats, and you’ll find the option. Then, to transcribe a voice message, long press on it and tap on ‘transcribe’ and you have it.
The new feature is rolling out globally “over the coming weeks”. More languages will be added in the future. There are obviously various other features expected to be coming to the platform in the coming months including the ability to tag group chats in WhatsApp statuses. So users can expect more to come soon.
