How do I turn a voice memo into notes?

A voice memo is the quickest way to catch a thought before it goes: an idea on a walk, the gist of a meeting while you still remember it, what the plumber said about the boiler, a recap of a lecture on the bus home. Making one takes a tap. Listening back takes as long as the memo did, so most are never played again. Text fixes half of that, since it can be skimmed and searched. The other half is deciding what was worth keeping and meeting it again, and a raw transcript of ten minutes of thinking out loud is still ten minutes of thinking out loud.

Apple's iPhone guide describes transcription built into Voice Memos on iPhone 12 or later, in languages that include English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese, though not in every country or region. On a finished recording, the guide says to tap More and choose View Transcript to copy part of the text, or Copy Transcript for all of it. If you only need the wording of one memo, that may be enough. Pulling out the point, filing it and being asked about it a week later is still up to you, and that is the part scrollandlearn is built for.

1. Open Add: on a phone, tap the yellow Add button beside the tab bar. On a computer, click into the Add field, the first card on Everything, where it says Paste a link or start typing.
2. Type a slash: type / and a short menu opens. Under Save, choose Voice memo, the row that says becomes a lesson.
3. Allow the microphone: the first time, your browser asks for access. The field shows Waiting for the microphone... until you allow it, then a counter starts at Recording 0:00.
4. Say what you want to keep: talk it through as you would to a friend. Recording stops by itself at ten minutes.
5. Stop: tap the round Stop button with the square in it. The field now shows Voice memo with its length, and Record again if you want another take.
6. Make the lesson: tap Make lesson, or press Enter on a computer. The memo waits on Everything as a card marked Making the lesson while the app writes down what you said.

Memos made in another app go in as files. There is no separate audio row in the slash menu: Video file opens a picker that takes audio too, and an audio file picked there is saved as a voice memo, even though the field labels it Video file until you send it.

1. Get the file onto your device: Apple's guide describes exporting from Voice Memos by tapping a recording, opening its share options and choosing Save to Files. Keep the default format, which Apple gives as .m4a; the Editable option saves a QuickTime Audio file, which scrollandlearn does not read.
2. Pick the memo: in Add, type /, choose Video file and pick the file. M4A, MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC and WebM all work.
3. Check the size: a file can be up to 50 MB, or 8 MB on a guest account, and up to 6 hours of audio.
4. Make the lesson: tap Make lesson or press Enter. From here it goes the way a recorded memo does.

The lesson is written from your own words. It opens on a one-line core idea and a few key points, then Remember this, the single sentence worth holding on to. Try this shows up when what you said suggests something to do; a memo that only captures a thought has none. The line above the title reads Voice memo and how long ago you made it.

Near the end of the lesson, Show transcript opens everything you said as plain text, written in the language you spoke. The lesson itself follows Settings > Lesson language: a new account writes lessons in English, Croatian is the other fixed choice, and Same as the post keeps the language of the memo.

The lesson is written from the whole memo on every plan. A memo gets a key point for each thing it says; a recording of half an hour or more comes back in sections, one for every part of about 20 minutes. The transcript is kept whole too, and search looks through all of it.

Our examples include no voice memo lessons, so below is an example of the lesson a conversation on YouTube becomes, shown for its shape.

• No words in it: a memo of silence or background noise gives no lesson. The app says This recording has no words we can hear, so there is nothing to make a lesson from.
• A format it can't read: anything outside M4A, MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC and WebM is turned away.
• Too large or too long: files over 50 MB (8 MB as a guest) are refused, and audio over 6 hours is not transcribed.
• The month's minutes used up: transcription uses the month's minutes, rounded up to the next minute. When they run out, the memo shows Try again and Upgrade instead of a lesson.

Add also takes links: paste the address of a public post from one of 15+ platforms and the app reads what the post itself says. A memo covers what no post holds, such as your own summary of a talk. The table shows what a link gives.

The lesson lands in a topic on its own, named after the things you keep saving, so a memo about pricing ideas can end up beside the posts you saved on growth. If it lands in the wrong place, Change moves it, and the same sheet has New topic for a name of your own, such as Meeting notes.

A thought said out loud once is easy to lose. Today's quiz asks a few questions about the lessons due that day, each one written from a single lesson. You answer in your head, tap Show answer and mark it Forgot, Kind of or Knew it. A Forgot brings the memo back tomorrow and resets it; Kind of waits 4 days; Knew it waits 14, and after that the gaps grow to 35, 88 and 219 days and finally a year.

If the transcription mishears a name, Edit lesson corrects the title, core idea, key points, Try this, Remember this and the quiz question; the transcript stays as written. My takeaway adds up to 500 characters of your own.

• Dictation: the lesson summarizes what you said. For your exact words, open Show transcript and select the text; Copy lesson and Export lessons carry the lesson and leave the transcript out.
• Timed: the transcript has no timestamps.
• A native app: there is no iPhone or Android app. Recording runs in the browser on your phone or computer.
• Shared: your library is private by default, and nobody sees your lessons or transcripts but you.