Better late than never: Voice message transcription finally available for WhatsApp for Android

More than a year after introducing voice message transcription on iOS, WhatsApp is finally bringing the feature to Android.

Android beta users already have the WhatsApp voice message transcription feature

The feature is now available to some users of WhatsApp beta version 2.24.15.5. If you are part of the beta program and see the feature, simply head to the Chats option in the app settings to enable it.

Voice message transcription is now active for some beta testers.

As you can see in the attached screenshot, some beta testers can already enable the transcription feature for incoming and outgoing voice messages. To use it, you will need to download an additional data package to protect your privacy.

In fact, these voice transcripts are generated directly on your device, so no one else can hear your voice notes or read the transcripts. Currently, you can choose from voice data packs such as English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian and Hindi.

The iOS version already supports more languages, so more languages ​​will likely be added to the Android version in the future. WhatsApp hasn’t announced any rollout details yet, but we expect the feature to be available on the stable channel in the coming weeks.

I find the voicemail transcription feature on WhatsApp very useful and it’s encouraging to see it becoming available to more and more people. This addition not only improves the app’s usability for users with hearing problems, but also comes in handy in noisy environments or at work where listening to voicemails may not be possible.

In other updates, the Meta-owned app is introducing context cards to combat group chat spam. Additionally, there are hints that the Live Translate feature from Samsung’s suite of AI tools, Galaxy AI, could soon be integrated into the app to provide seamless translation during calls.