A transcript is only useful once it is where you need it: a document for a client, subtitles for a video, a note in Apple Notes, a folder your other tools read. You can export a transcript to PDF, Word, SRT, VTT, JSON, Markdown, CSV or plain text on iPhone, iPad and Mac. You can share it through the standard system sheet, or save a whole collection or your whole library. Here is each route.
Which format for which job
iPhone, iPad and Mac offer the same eight formats. The right one depends on where the file goes next.
- Plain Text: the transcript as text. Use it when something else will read the file, or when you want the most durable copy.
- Markdown: plain text with structure that survives, so headings, speaker names and timestamps arrive as Markdown. Use it for Obsidian, Notion or a wiki, anywhere you will search the transcript later.
- PDF: the final version. It fixes the layout, so what you send is what the other person sees, which is why it is a poor intermediate step. Use it for a client or an archive copy, never for a document someone must edit.
- Word Document (DOCX on iPhone and iPad): a .docx for when the other person will work on the text, with track changes and comments at the far end. Use it for anything that goes through review.
- JSON: for software, not for people. Every segment with start and end times, speaker and text, so a script can filter by speaker or cut clips at segment boundaries.
- CSV: one row per segment, with start and end times, speaker and text. Use it for a spreadsheet, to sort, filter or count by speaker without writing a script.
- SRT Subtitles: numbered, timed cues that almost every player and video editor accepts. Use it for a video edit, or for a platform that asks for a caption file without saying which.
- VTT Subtitles: the web standard for captions, and what an HTML
<track>element expects. Use it for video on your own site.
How to export a transcript on iPhone or iPad
- Open the transcript and tap the ... menu.
- Tap Export, then Export as followed by the format you want: TXT, SRT, VTT, JSON, Markdown, PDF, DOCX or CSV.
- The file goes to the share sheet, so you can save it to Files, AirDrop it, or hand it to another app.
- For the audio itself, use Share Audio. For quick text, Copy Text and Share Text in the same menu skip the file altogether.
How to export a transcript on Mac
- Open the transcript in the Workspace.
- Use Export and choose Plain Text, SRT Subtitles, VTT Subtitles, JSON, Markdown, PDF, Word Document or CSV, then pick where to save it.
- Use Export Audio... to save the recording itself.
- Use Share to Notes to put the transcript into Apple Notes.
What survives the trip into another app
An export is a copy, and every copy loses something. The losses are predictable.
In a word processor, a .docx arrives with its paragraphs, bold text and headings intact and keeps working as a document: styles apply, tracked changes work, the word count is real. What does not arrive is any notion that a timestamp is a timestamp or a speaker label is a speaker. Both are ordinary text a find-and-replace can mangle. A PDF is the opposite: the layout is perfect and the structure is gone, so text pulled back out of it arrives with broken line endings and stray hyphens.
In a note-taking app, Markdown behaves best. Apps that store Markdown natively keep the file as written; apps that convert on import turn the headings into their own rich text, which looks right but leaves no markup to edit.
What never travels is an edit made after the export. Correcting a name in the .docx does not correct it in the transcript, so decide where the authoritative copy lives before you edit in two places.
How timestamps and speaker labels are represented
Only some formats have anywhere to put this, which is the real reason there are eight.
Documents (Text, Markdown, PDF, Word) can only carry them as text: typically a time, a name, then the words. Nothing marks them as special, so a later tool cannot strip them automatically. JSON and CSV are the only formats that keep them as separate fields, which is what lets a script or a spreadsheet rebuild the transcript however it likes.
SRT keeps time and drops everything else. Each cue is a number, a start and end time separated by an arrow, the text, and a blank line, with a comma before the milliseconds:
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,400
Alex: Thanks everyone for making the time today.
2
00:00:03,900 --> 00:00:08,250
Priya: Let's start with last quarter's numbers.
SRT has no speaker field, so a name can only sit inside the cue text, conventionally as a prefix like the one above. VTT is the same idea with a WEBVTT header and full stops before the milliseconds, and it does have a speaker construct, the voice span, which browsers can style:
WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.400
<v Alex>Thanks everyone for making the time today.
2
00:00:03.900 --> 00:00:08.250
<v Priya>Let's start with last quarter's numbers.
Both expect cues in chronological order with no overlapping times, and both are plain text, so a wrong word or a late caption can be fixed in any editor before you hand the file over.
When a video from a camera carries a timecode, the export menu also offers subtitles and CSV at the video's timecode, so the cue times match the clip's timecode in a video editor instead of starting at zero.
Summaries and minutes
The summary, meeting minutes and action items live with the transcript, and each result can be edited before it goes anywhere. Meeting minutes from a recording shows how to get minutes worth sending, and on Mac, Share to Notes is the quickest way to get a meeting into the note you already keep for a project.
Auto-export a batch of imports (Mac)
When you import a batch of files on the Mac, turn on Auto-Export After Transcription and each finished transcript is saved as a file for you, without opening them one by one. Pointing it at a folder inside a Markdown notes vault with Markdown selected turns every imported recording into a note. To skip the import step too, set a Watch Folder under Settings > Transcription: audio and video files added to that folder are transcribed by themselves, and files already in it are left alone. The import guide covers batch import.
Export a collection
Open a collection and use Export All to export all of its transcripts at once. This is how to hand over a whole project's interviews, or to archive a semester of lectures. Markdown export is also the quickest way into podcast show notes and chapters, because the timestamps come across with the text.
Back up or move the whole library
Settings > Backup & Restore has Export Library..., which saves a copy of your whole library; Backup & Restore is also where you bring one back. Use it before wiping a machine, or to keep an archive of your own on an external drive. Keeping two devices in step is a different job from this one, and the guide to sync and backup sets out what travels between devices and what does not. For where export fits in the whole workflow, see the complete voice to text guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can I export a transcript to Word on iPhone?
Yes. On iPhone and iPad, tap ... > Export and choose DOCX; on the Mac the same format is called Word Document. Both give you a .docx file you can open in Word or any word processor that reads it.
Is my transcript sent anywhere when I export?
It is never sent to us. Exporting creates a file on your device, and sharing goes through the system share sheet to the app or place you pick, and only there.
Can I export to Notion or Obsidian?
Yes, through Markdown. Export the transcript as Markdown and save it into your vault or import it into your workspace, or use Copy Text and paste. On Mac, Auto-Export After Transcription can write a batch of imported files straight into a folder.
Where do exported files go?
On Mac you choose the location when you export. On iPhone and iPad the share sheet lets you save to Files, AirDrop the file or send it to another app.
