Speech to Text

What it does

Press the start button, speak into your microphone, and watch your words appear as text in real time. Useful for dictating a quick note, drafting an email when typing is slower than thinking, capturing meeting notes, or transcribing a voice memo into shareable text. The output updates word-by-word as you speak — you'll see "interim" recognition (italicized, may change) become "final" recognition (committed, won't change) as the model gets enough context.

The tool uses your browser's built-in SpeechRecognition API, which on Chrome / Edge / Brave / Arc routes audio through Google's hosted recognition service. That means it requires an internet connection and your audio is briefly transmitted to Google for processing — Google doesn't tie it to your account or retain it for model training (per their developer docs), but if total local processing is a hard requirement, this isn't the right tool. Safari has a partial implementation; Firefox doesn't support the API at all.

Supports 50+ languages — pick yours from the dropdown before starting. Accuracy is excellent for clear adult speech in a quiet room (~95%+ word accuracy in English), drops with background noise, accent strength, technical jargon, or mumbled speech. If a word comes out wrong, you can edit the transcript directly before copying.

How to use it

1. Pick your spoken language from the dropdown (defaults to your browser's locale).
2. Click Start. The browser asks for microphone permission the first time — grant it.
3. Speak naturally. Words appear word-by-word; pause at sentence boundaries to commit segments.
4. Edit the transcript directly if you spot a recognition error — the box is fully editable.
5. Click Stop when you're done, then Copy to put the text on your clipboard.

When to use this tool

• Dictating a quick email, message, or note when typing is slower than speaking.
• Capturing a voice memo as text without uploading the audio anywhere.
• Transcribing a one-on-one meeting (place phone or laptop on the table).
• Drafting in a different language than you can type in fluently — speak it, edit the result.

When not to use it

• Sensitive content (legal, medical, financial details) — audio is transmitted to Google's recognition service. For local-only STT, use Whisper running locally or a privacy-focused alternative.
• Multi-speaker transcripts (meetings, interviews) — the API doesn't separate speakers. Use Otter, Rev, or Whisper-based tools for diarization.
• Long audio files — the API is designed for live mic input, not file upload. For audio-file transcription use a Whisper-based tool.
• Noisy environments — accuracy drops sharply with background music, traffic, or multiple voices.

Common use cases

• Onboarding a colleague who needs the same calculation/conversion
• Verifying a number or output before passing it on
• Quick conversion during a typical workday
• Pre-decision sanity-check on inputs and outputs