# Audio File Transcriber > MP3 to Text · WAV · M4A · OGG · FLAC · MP4 · Timestamps · SRT/VTT Export Free audio file transcriber. Convert MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, AAC, MP4, MOV, AVI to text via Groq Whisper AI. SRT/VTT export, 25 languages. URL: https://tools.scoreroute.com/tools/audio-transcriber/ Markdown: https://tools.scoreroute.com/tools/audio-transcriber/.md ### Why this transcriber is different AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude cannot directly process arbitrary audio files in their chat interface - they have no audio upload pathway, no native timestamp output, and no subtitle export. This tool runs Groq Whisper large-v3 (state-of-the-art speech recognition) through a Cloudflare Pages Function, returning accurate transcripts with timestamps you can save as plain text, SRT subtitles (YouTube/VLC compatible), or VTT subtitles (HTML5 video). Unlike paid services such as Otter.ai, Rev.com, or ElevenLabs, this is free with no signup and no daily limit. Files are sent to Groq's inference API and discarded - they are not stored or used for training. ## How It Works This tool uses a three-stage pipeline to transcribe your audio file: Whisper handles 25 supported languages natively with state-of-the-art accuracy. For best results, use a clear recording with minimal background noise. The **auto-detect** language mode works for monolingual recordings. - **Upload** — Drag-and-drop or click to select any audio file (MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, AAC, WEBM) or video file (MP4, MOV, AVI). For video files, the audio track is extracted server-side. - **Transcribe** — The Cloudflare Pages Function at `/api/audio-transcriber` forwards the file to Groq Whisper large-v3, which is an OpenAI Whisper large-v3 model running on Groq's LPU inference hardware. Whisper returns the transcript with timestamps at the segment level. - **Export** — The transcript is returned with timestamps you can read inline, plus download options: plain `.txt`, `.srt` subtitles (compatible with YouTube, VLC, FFmpeg, Adobe Premiere), or `.vtt` subtitles (compatible with HTML5 video players). ## Why AI Chatbots Cannot Do This Even though ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can write essays and answer questions, they fundamentally cannot perform this task in their standard chat interface: That is why this tool exists: it solves a real problem that AI assistants cannot address through their standard chat interface. - **No audio upload pipeline** — Chatbots accept text, not binary audio. You would have to first transcribe the file with another service, then paste the result into the chatbot. - **No timestamp output** — Even if you did paste a transcript, the chatbot has no way to add segment-level start/end timecodes. This tool returns precise second-level timestamps. - **No subtitle export** — SRT and VTT are industry-standard subtitle formats. A chatbot can describe what an SRT file looks like, but cannot generate one from a raw audio file. - **No multilingual detection** — Whisper auto-detects the spoken language from 99 supported languages with high accuracy. A chatbot guessing from a written prompt would be unreliable. ## Use Cases ### Transcribe Meetings & Interviews Upload the audio recording from your meeting or interview and get a clean transcript with timestamps you can search, quote, and share. ### Convert Lectures to Notes Record a 1-hour lecture and convert it to text. Then use the AI summarizer or the timestamped output to create study notes and citations. ### Subtitle YouTube Videos Extract audio from a video, transcribe it, then download as SRT subtitles to upload directly to YouTube Studio or import into your video editor. ### Transcribe Podcasts Convert podcast MP3s to text for SEO blog posts, transcripts pages, accessibility compliance (ADA), or content repurposing. ### Voice Memos Cleanup Turn rambling voice memos into clean structured text. Use the plain text export to paste into your notes app or email draft. ### Foreign Language Learning Upload native-speaker audio and get a transcript in the original language plus timestamps for follow-along practice. Supports 25 languages including Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic. ## Frequently Asked Questions **What audio file formats are supported?** The transcriber accepts MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, AAC, WEBM, OPUS audio files plus MP4, MOV, AVI, WEBM, 3GP, M4B video files (audio track is extracted automatically). Max file size is 25MB per the Groq Whisper API limit. **Is my audio file uploaded to a server?** The audio is sent to Groq's Whisper API for transcription. Groq does not store your audio or use it to train models according to their privacy policy. The file is processed in-memory and discarded after transcription. The Cloudflare Pages Function acts as a thin proxy that never logs audio content. **How accurate is the transcription?** The tool uses Groq Whisper large-v3 which achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on the FLEURS and Common Voice benchmarks. For clear English speech the word error rate is typically under 5%. For noisy audio or strong accents, accuracy may drop, but the model is generally more accurate than other free online services. **What languages can it transcribe?** 25 languages are explicitly supported including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Swedish, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai, Ukrainian, Czech, Finnish, Hebrew. Auto-detect mode lets Whisper pick the language automatically. Whisper supports 99 languages in total but only these 25 are exposed in the dropdown for accuracy reasons. **Can I export the transcript with timestamps?** Yes. The tool returns segments with start and end timestamps. You can download the transcript as plain text, SRT subtitles (used by YouTube, VLC, video editors), or VTT subtitles (used by HTML5 video). Each segment preserves its timecode. **Why use this instead of ChatGPT or Claude?** AI chatbots cannot directly process arbitrary audio files in their web interface. They would need you to first upload the file to a separate transcription service. Our tool does the entire pipeline in one step with proper timestamp output, 25-language support, and subtitle export - which a chatbot cannot generate natively. **Does it cost money?** No. The tool is free to use with no signup required. It uses the Groq Whisper API free tier which provides 60 requests per minute. There is no daily limit beyond the rate cap. **Can I transcribe long files like a 2-hour lecture?** Yes, as long as the file is under 25MB. For a 2-hour MP3 at 32kbps mono, the file is around 28MB - too large. Use 64kbps mono to fit (about 57MB), or compress to MP3 16-24kbps which keeps speech intelligible and fits comfortably. WAV files are usually too large for long recordings. ## References - [MDN — Canvas API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Canvas_API) - [MDN — HTMLMediaElement](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLMediaElement)