Name: Otter: Transcribe Voice Notes
Rating: 4.75128 (36225 reviews)

User Reviews for Otter: Transcribe Voice Notes

4.75 out of 5

36.2K Ratings

3 months ago, Greggy 2

Life Changer

Otter has honestly been a life changer. My university supplied it for me as an accommodation to have a live transcription/record of classes/lectures and it was INCREDIBLE! Up until grad school I had been getting lost during class and often having to ask classmates what we were talking about - but now I could simply scroll up the transcript and read verbatim what I had missed. It was also very helpful for when professors verbally explained assignments. In the past I would have the prompts but forget what the professor had explained, but now I could go back and read the transcript or actually listen to the audio of their instructions! It’s also been so helpful during meetings to create a transcript so I can focus on the conversation itself rather than trying to write everything down. It creates highlights which are helpful to jog my memory, and then I have everything right there if I want to look back at it. It also is so helpful when I write papers! In the past I’ve spent a lot of time staring at a blank Word doc because I just didn’t know how to start or write out all of my thoughts. With Otter I start by talking through my outline, and then use that transcript document to flesh out the rest of my paper. I don’t know how I would have finished grad school without Otter.

3 years ago, blinkofaneyeballs

Life changer

This tool has been a life changer for me. I used to struggle to write, and voice memos become my preferred method of expression. I hated having to listen to my voice to get a transcription, and the free voice to text service from word and google docs never got an accurate transcription (i have a tongue tie and don’t speak “properly”). I have been using otter for a couple months now to help me write. It’s the best service i have found for the price, and i would recommend to anyone who uses voice memos to record notes or write. The transcripts are very accurate and the ability to make corrections makes this very powerful. There are playback speed options, and you can see in the transcript what word is which from the recording timing. I just wish i could take the videos of my livestreams and upload them for transcription, but i get around this by simply playing the livestream later, while this records the audio, or by recording the audio into otter while i stream. Such a great service! Wish i had this in college, i probably could’ve had the best lecture notes, as well as a cohesive strategy for essay writing via voice memo. Highly highly recommend, the free version is very useful so give it a try!

6 years ago, Ian_Ingram

Great BUT Please Get Google Integration!

I’m in yearbook at my highschool and I do interviews all the time and this is the best app for the job, hands down. I still have to make edits to my interviews because the hallways can be noisy and the people I’m interviewing can be quiet and this can lead to the app not picking up words or getting the wrong words, but I can’t really control those things. My only problem with the app is that I cannot just convert it into a Google Doc straight from the app, many school districts are moving to Google for their way of communication (Classroom, Docs, Slides, Gmail) and it would save me time because currently I have to put it in my notes app, then copy it, then create a Doc, then paste it in the doc. My guess is you guys have been thinking about this for a while and I saw that you guys respond to reviews somewhat quickly so I thought I would give a review. P.S. Also, does a visual representation of the different speakers exist on the app? I would love to be able to visually know when speakers change, I understand how this would be hard because not everyone talks the same all day but maybe you could let us do it manually? Like my font would always be grey and other people talking (in my case it’s 1 person) would be another color. Alright, I hope this gets through to somebody who can at least think about it. Thank you for your time. Great app.

6 years ago, YLopera

Taken aback by how closely accurately and easily this works

Okay, so I’m one of these people that hardly ever writes a review because either apps work they way they’re supposed to or not, in which case you look for ones that do, but I’ve been using this app for the past 10 minutes and I can attest that the transcription part has been working perfectly (probably 95% accuracy). I only need to go back into it and edit a few words which they it gets wrong, but basically this will end up saving me hours of the transcription process — what makes it even better/easier is that as the words are heard spoken, it highlights the specific words so it makes it that much easier for me to make sure that what was said is what was transcribed and I can fix it on the fly right there if it is not. You gotta try this out for yourself to believe it. In my case, it was just me speaking into the microphone from wherever I was and my voice was pretty clear, plus it imported perfectly from Scrivener into the app, I made corrections and instead of exporting it back into the app, I got as far as right before importing and copied the corrected transcription to paste into the app. If I had to do this for a living I’d be getting the premium service. Anyway, this truly works.

5 months ago, Ahahebrfiwo

Almost Perfect

Frankly, this app is fantastic. It does an amazing job transcribing voice to text. It’s very accurate. It’s very fast. It has lots of amazing functions. It makes meeting notes and organizing your transcriptions and everything really fantastic. It’s a beautifully wonderfully made app. It’s just really unfortunate that it is only available for English. I’m an American, working in Mexico and, I read Spanish much better than I understand it often because there’s lots of different accents and dialect and it can be challenging throughout the day especially once I get tired but if I can read what’s being said makes a lot easier for me. I don’t need a translator I just need transcription and I really really wish I could use this app in the Spanish language because it would make my life so much easier running a business in Mexico and I literally would be using this app all day every day if it could understand Spanish but It can’t unfortunately, so please add the ability for other languages. Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world, I would recommend adding that ability to the app and it would make it for me perfect

10 months ago, EJ1H

I would give this a 5 but…

I’m a writer and love the convenience of Otter which has worked better for me than other apps I’ve tried. Over all its accuracy has been improving and its voice recording quality is good. What has been a problem for me is the clunkiness when editing. Simply getting the two cursors to the right point in the text has been aggravatingly difficult and then once there instead of the one word I’m trying to replace or the punctuation I’m trying to add several words or several lines will select themselves instead and I’ll have to start the process all over again. And back at its location once again I’m still having to retype back in the several others next to it. The other issue I’ve been having are the recording and transcription limits (90 minutes per session) even after upgrading to pro. And the only next level they offer is business which is not available to use on my phone and which charges for features I don’t need. The other thing which would add value for me would be to be able to see at a glance the list of my writing and meeting notes with the information next to each one whether it has been saved to a cloud (by me or by the app) and if so to which one.

12 months ago, Jay -D

Excellent customer support!

I am a student at university, Otter ai helps me a lot with my studies all the time. I have to say I can’t live without it! This is an excellent app! Not only the app is super, also their customer support is awesome! Recently I encountered an issue with my Otter account. The issue related apple private relay as a unique function. When I accidentally signed out, I couldn't sign back to my pro Otter account due to apple private relay security barrier. Since a lot of study materials in Otter, I am so worried these super important materials might be lost. I almost got depressed about the incident and wrote an email to Otter customer support team expressing my concerns. Otter ai team responded to me promptly. They further investigated the issues, making sure my materials were still stored at their end, and helped me bring my account back. I am so impressed by their skill and customer care, putting customers' needs as a priority. I can't thank them enough for doing the effective work! And I must say, you will never worry about the data being lost, because their data equipment has higher quality and support team is very skilled and service is excellent!

4 years ago, jenjenteacher77

PERFECT for the deaf/hard of hearing!

In these Covid times, many places of employment have switched to remote/distance communications via different platforms. In the world of education, we will be starting our school year remotely and as a teacher that is hard of hearing, I rely on lip reading. For years I have been looking for an app to transcribe speech to text. I have downloaded tons and paid for more than I’m embarrassed to admit. Today. My life was changed. 5 minutes before a scheduled online training, I threw up a Hail Mary and downloaded otter. I pushed record and waited for the usual transcript...which is usually: what.....come......no.......books. To my huge surprise otter immediately begin transcribing the speech of the presenter word for word. I couldn’t believe it. I used it for the entire 8 hours of my training today. Best app I have ever used. It was FREE AND it saved every single transcription that it recorded. I can’t thank this company enough or sing it’s praises enough. I can now participate, ask questions, give feedback via online classrooms only bc of otter! Download it....it is so worth it. Excited to try it in meetings, drs offices, etc! Thank you Otter! Thank you!

1 week ago, AndyzSweetJamz2000

Bait and switch

Basically just switch their model where they made a basic version, their premium version and their premium version a business version. so anyone who was loyal to the premium version for a couple of years, would get the shock of the general use case now being strictly limited. and on top of it, if you chose not to upgrade to business and just wanted to cancel, you wouldn’t really even have the option to back up everything that’s in your account without upgrading to business. On top of that, they don’t allow a business account subscription through the App Store. Which is obviously intentional because Otter is in money grab phase of hooking a customer with an admittedly fine product then gouging with a higher subscription level to retain the same features as the previous premium level, and stripping features from paying subscribers. This instead of being a thoughtful developer and actually coming up with something new for business level subscription. Anyway, discovered that Microsoft Word dictation will actually do transcription at no additional cost, so Otter’s basic transcription isn’t a value. The other features might be to certain people, but I don’t think it’s really very ethical to create higher subscription levels and migrate features to the higher subscription model to pull in more revenue.

5 years ago, GWRROZ

Best

Believe me when I tell you I am a connoisseur of speech to text voice recognition. I have been using dragon anywhere but will cancel that account to use this one. My suggestions would be to make it so that I can use my Apple Watch with this. That would seem to make sense since it is designed to handle multiple conversations which the Apple Watch could be the intake for. The other suggestion, which is more important to me, is to simplify the process by which I can export the text to Notes. Having to click continue every time is a nuisance. My congratulations to the developers. Also because I have been doing so much speak to text voice recognition I routinely say the word Period. I also say the words new paragraph. This is not a big issue but perhaps you might allow for a setting that permits me to say these words and have them activate commands. And I think it is amazing that I can just leave it on and it only records when I start speaking. I hated it when dragon anywhere would stop recording on its own. Take-home message: make it easier to copy to notes. Make it easier to share. You still get five stars.

5 years ago, MistyManns

How did I live without you

I’ve been transcribing for a couple years but I’ve usually only don’t small segments. Most were just small snippets of audio and never the full version. I recently accepted an offer from a client who required full transcription of her interviews, some of which, are over an hour. I was 15 mins into transcribing and I was exhausted. I did some googling tried Google Docs but it was complete trash. I found Otter and downloaded it on my phone at first. I played the audio on my computer and recorded it on my phone. I thought I hit the jackpot. Once it was done, I emailed it to myself. I got on my computer to open it and it made me sign in online. This is where I discovered that I could just upload the audio file and it would process it for me! Then by pure accident, I realized I could play it and it would highlight the words as it played. I would say it’s about 90% right. I love that we can assign speakers and timestamps. Then when we export it into word, you can choose to keep the speakers and timestamps or remove them. This has cut my transcribing time down extremely!! Saving me hours!! Love love love!

3 months ago, Nicci5

Just Fabulous

I can’t say enough good things. I work from home now and it makes it so much easier to take notes of meetings, phone calls, etc. and after I have a long meeting, I can go back and easily see the talking points a summary, and action items. They’re already done for me. I don’t even have to do that part myself, the transcription is extremely accurate and very fast. When I need it, I can even listen to the conversation back as well. I just have nothing but good things to say. I ended up paying for the additional minutes/conversations after using the free version for about a year. I didn’t necessarily need to upgrade, but just decided that I liked it so much that I really wanted to invest in using it much more often and not having to be too judicious about using it. That said, I think a lot of people could just use the free version and have no problems at all. I intend on continuing with the paid version as long as the price doesn’t get entirely too steep. If I owned a business, I would get a license for all of my employees.

2 years ago, milesofsmiles644

Great for voice journaling or therapy!

I use this app primarily for audio journaling and I LOVE IT. It’s the best free app I’ve found that records and transcribes voice in real time. The real time aspect is important because as someone with ADHD, I get distracted easily and lose my train of thought. With the real time transcription, I can easily read back what I had just said and get back on track. The app also automatically adds “tags” so I can see what certain entries are about at a glance. Ex: “work” “john” “stress” “hope”, etc. I think these tags are based on which words are repeated most. I like to go back sometimes and either reread or re-listen to entries so I can reflect on how I was feeling that day with a fresh perspective. The free version of the app gives you a limited number of minutes, but I’ve never come close to hitting that limit - even though I use the app several times a week. I also really appreciate that the app runs in the background (meaning you can use other apps at the same time). This means I can Google things that come to mind on walks, or navigate while I drive, all while continuing to record. I told my therapist about how much this style of journaling has benefitted me and she now recommends this to clients who have trouble with other kinds of journaling. The app is intended for business / professional use, but it works wonderfully for my purposes. Thank you!

1 year ago, Boca Bonita

Love this app!

I love this app y’all! I am a minister, a psychological practitioner, a writer and a black person who loves expression! Ideas spring forth in my mind with uncanny speed and regularity. Picking up the pen and finding one of my notebooks to capture these little gems is not always an option. But my phone is always close by and I can capture so much more with otter than on paper—especially having come from an oral tradition. I have written sermons, autobiographical stories and sketches, and catalogued many ideas for further consideration. Oh! And I also host early morning meditation sessions in which I speak for 1-10 minutes before we go into silence. I record these sessions and they are a treasure trove of insights, questions, and explorations. For some reason, like with today’s meditation session, the transcript contained an unusually high number of errors. While that doesn’t make me happy, it does not detract significantly from my experience of the app. I have and will continue to recommend Otter to anyone who needs a note taking system or who wants to capture their ideas, etc. Thanks Otter!

5 months ago, DanielBrooks

Technical support worse than the business

Very frustrating here asking every day for me to up my minutes and every day I open the case to up my minutes and nobody even gets back to me. I believe your application is really good but your support is probably the worst I’ve ever seen in the history of my career. And when I contact the Sales they told me open up the case there comes as a pop-up pop-up, which I do every day. and I told him how crazy it was so obviously this is gonna give this application a zero star for me here soon and I’m gonna copy and paste this into my comments about this application with Apple Store App Store and that everybody else know that I have contacts as an msp with over 200 clients in the metro New York area and a lot of them do use you guys not more pretty soon because it’s getting very frustrating . The best way for any software application provider can lose clients is by not provide the technical for someone who is beta testing it to see if he likes it. Oh, and by the way, Sales told me I gotta buy a premier package of some sort tickets support with that really is crazy and I even asked to purchase every day more minutes and you guys don’t get back to me…something is really wrong with your company

1 year ago, cannotevenputreviewin

Good. Could have been great as claimed by editor

This app worked perfectly transcribing the college tours that we went on including with a lot of noise. Unfortunately, if the recording stopped or paused and then continued, you were charged for your total number of allowed recordings even with a pro subscription. I bought the pro subscription because the allotted monthly minutes were less than the total min of the tours that we went to. Unfortunately, because of the limited number of sessions, I was only able to transcribe about 40% of the allowed monthly minutes. You cannot even upgrade to the next level which of course you are invited to do. You have to do that on a computer which is impossible since it is an ios app. I guess I will have to wait a month to use a new set of minutes and won't receive the minutes I paid for. I have not got reply from the help links. Update: apple sent me an email asking if I wanted to contact the developers. This say's a lot. They could have contacted me if they wanted to. Apple could hold them accountable for being deceptive if they wanted to. Lesson learned

6 years ago, AfiaAkler

Thank you

Thank you for creating this app. It is what the deaf and hearing-impaired community needs. I wear hearing aids and today, I went to Bible study and discovered that I had left my hearing aids at home. My pastor is soft-spoken so I began to search for real-time transcription apps and came across your app. I wasn’t expecting much from it as previous apps I had tried in the past had been terrible. About 5 minutes into using your app, I became convinced that this app is revolutionary: I was blown away by the speed and accuracy of the transcriptions. I used it throughout the two-hour Bible study and the transcription kept up in speed and accuracy. I am very impressed. Please, market this app to the deaf and hearing-impaired community because it is needed. A potential market for you is to find a way for cellphone calls to be transcribed real-time for deaf and hearing-impaired people. There is company that offers this service but their transcriptions are very, very bad. Thanks and I am happy to join your customer base.

3 years ago, TrimGal

This app is saving my thumbs!

As a writer I often wake up inspired by switcher dreams or whatever it is our brains do during sleep. My whole life it’s been a groaning struggle between sleep, or breakfast, and capturing my inspiration when it is fresh and clear, Otter fixed this, because reaching iPad with half closed eyes and clicking record, then mumbling through my new material take sthe keast amount of effort ever. And the frustration of having an hour of deciphering what was transcribed because Otter gets it 90% right—usually only stumbling over new terminology or character names, and not recognizing a long pause as a comma not a period. But I do see it learning, both my character names and commonly used but u usual words. I’m not sure if that’s because I edit before exporting text, or some other voodoo. Also I have pain in my hands after too much thumb, or even finger, typing and this minimized the need for that. Anyway, thank you little Otter.

4 years ago, cowapp

Awesome!!

I was trying to take notes from podcasts and I would have to keep going back over and over again to try to make sure I wrote everything down correctly. (I’m 54 so my retention of things isn’t as good as it used to be). After struggling with this problem for a couple of weeks and wasting too much time, I started wondering if there was an easier way. I started searching the tech websites for speech to text options and this app was one that was recommended so I gave it a try. I also needed something that was cheap or free right now because I’m unemployed and not receiving any unemployment compensation so money is tight. There are a few words that I have corrected that were close to what was said but it’s not a whole lot. In a perfect world everything would work perfectly but since it’s not a perfect world, correcting a few words isn’t a problem. I am using the free version now but as soon as I’m able to find a job, I will be upgrading.

3 years ago, humanbein

Incredible functionality

It’s hard to believe that someone came up with an app that is exactly what I needed and has features far beyond what I expected. I’m constantly being surprised by what I can do with this app. Transcribing from voice to text is just the beginning of its capabilities and usages. I’m now composing wide range of content and refining them using the transcriptions in unexpected ways. For example: I will transcribe a lot of random subjects or thoughts and string them together into a document from which I then create a narration that reads like I had spent hours composing it, when it only took me a few minutes. That’s an incredible shortcut for content creation. The transcription isn’t perfect but it’s really good and can be enhanced by adding your own vocabulary words which I think is incredibly important. I absolutely love this app! It may be the best app that I’ve ever downloaded. I highly recommend the upgrade. It increases the functionality by a factor of 10x.

2 years ago, TCinLA

Otter is life-changing!

Otter has been transformational for me as a professional writer, and has dramatically accelerated progress on a book I’m writing. I can wake up in the middle of the night with a single idea — wearing a sleep mask, not even opening my eyes — turn on the app and start talking. An hour later 15 pages of the book are written. And because I’m doing this in a half-dream state, the creativity and flow is incredibly intuitive and natural. I also use the Otter app to record meetings or conversations, or simply to jot down ideas as they occur while walking (since I always have my phone with me) that I can edit and export as a Word doc, etc later. What’s brilliant about Otter is that it synchronizes the audio to the text, so you can be in the middle of a one-hour interview, click on a word that was misheard/mistyped, and immediately find it in the audio version and correct it in the text. Otter is a writer’s best friend!

4 years ago, Geimu

A really good option for hearing impaired persons to use during Zoom calls

I currently serve on several non-profit organizations and was concerned about being able to participate in Zoom calls this year. Closed captioning services are cost prohibitive and I find them to be frustrating especially if the captioner usually is a court reporter who has installed legal jargon that often pops up but is not relevant to the conversation. An online class I was taking was using Otter and I was duly impressed with it. And because it was a class it allowed me to go back and read over the transcripts for review. I now am considering a premium membership but really hope to survive on a basic membership since I do not have a regular income to sustain a paid one but have been asking my non-profit boards to invest: it is still very reasonable. Thank you and I look forward to great improvements as technology continues to grow.

4 years ago, LoudonGoldenBoy

Best of its class! Fast, accurate, fab on iOS

Otter is superior to any of its competitors (I’ve used all premium auto transcription apps available for Mac currently available l). Outstanding features: Otter’s auto transcription is both faster and more accurate in compared to its competitors and it does a surprisingly good job with punctuation. It really shines on iOS—on iPad I arrange split screen view so Otter is in one pane and the Google doc I’m working in another; I can listen and control audio on my iPhone while editing, fact checking and formatting on the iPad or Mac full screen. “Tag” (name) a speaker once and Otter will update the speaker’s name on that transcript...and the next time (whether a month or a year later) that speaker is on an audio recording, Otter will recognize and tag the speaker (on the rare occasions it selects the wrong speaker, correction takes seconds). The free version offers a generous number of minutes but limits choices for playback speed; the paid version is worth it’s relatively low fee. Thanks Otter!

2 years ago, 😍😍🎶🎵😊😊

AMAZING!! What a time saver!

This app is incredible! I conduct many interviews and meetings and WOW, this app has made my work so much more efficient! The accuracy is impeccable, even when the people speaking have thick accents or soft voices. You can highlight text, play back the audio in sync with the corresponding transcription segment, and even go in and edit mistakes, name the different speakers, etc. You can record straight into the app or import recordings (if you have premium, which I have, though is definitely not necessary for getting good use out of this app). I can’t think of one issue (obviously the transcriptions aren’t perfect and there are still many small things to tweak but I think the accuracy of this app is so much better than many others I have tried). The sleek design and easy accessibility and usability is the cherry on top. Thank you SO much for this app!!! One of the best productivity tools out there👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

5 years ago, Spitbite

Workplace Game-changer

This app is PHENOMENAL. I’m deaf, wear hearing aids, and while I can talk well, I have to read lips in order to understand what the person is saying. Just to give you some context. With that said, this app has KICKED open a door in my career! I work as content strategist and handle media relations for a marketing firm. Meetings have always been a challenge for me because the more people involved in a conversation, the more likely it is that I’ll miss what’s being said. And there’s a lot at stake when it comes to clients. Then, staff meetings can be difficult because one of the employees I work with the most is a remote employee and she reports in over the phone. Enter Otter. I can’t tell you guys how much this has changed things for me! It’s quick, it’s really pretty accurate (just make sure the microphone is positioned just right!), and it’s rendered correctly! I love this app I love it I love it. My boss is considering springing for the paid plans after seeing how much easier this has made my life. I’m a better employee and a happier person for this. If you could just include a real-time transcription service for calls made on cell phones to your roadmap....you would be killing it. There are NO services for the Deaf that do what Otter does with the same speed and accuracy! Keep up the good work. You have made a serious and fervent fan out of me. Thank you for helping me on so many levels.

5 years ago, OkGoDoIt

By far the most accurate automated transcription

The accuracy of this app is the best out of all the transcription services I have tried. Obviously it’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly good even given less than ideal background noise. Some suggestions that would make this extremely valuable for me: 1. Recording via Apple Watch. I currently have to use an app called Just Press Record to record on my watch and synchronize to my phone, and then manually import those recordings into Otter. It would be better if I could have an Otter app on my Apple Watch and record through the app. It doesn’t even need to be real time. 2. Developer API. As a software developer I currently build integrations with the Google speech recognition API, which is not nearly as good as Otter. I talked with the Otter team at a conference recently and they said they have no intentions to release a developer API, which is a shame. Please reconsider! I would happily pay for developer access to your amazing speech recognition system. 3. Integration with Spotlight. Transcriptions should be indexed so I can search them via iOS. 4. I love that they added custom vocabulary in the most recent update! But currently it's all manual. It would be great if it preloaded the person contact list vocabulary with my phone's address book, and maybe infer the rest of the vocabulary from my Messages/Gmail/other data the way SwiftKey does.

4 years ago, Scifivision

I did love it but now I’m angry

This was a really great app. I used it all the time for phone interviews. Suddenly I try to import an mp3 from my recorder and it won’t work. I updated, and now it says there is a limit on imports for basic accounts (like 3 I guess). I’ve only used 14 of 600 minutes for the month (one file)! I usually only import a few a month. It says you can record directly without paying, but 1. It doesn’t record phone calls (which I am legally recording as interviews to transcribe with their knowledge), and 2. I already have the files, so I’m stuck. I’m on a time crunch so I either pay or find another app. If I had gotten a warning, I could have tried recording using my iPad and the phone speaker, but no notification it was going to suddenly stop working. So now I’m just stuck with mp3s I can’t import. Really uncool to do to your customers. You should have at the very least given a heads up. I get you want money, but that’s crappy to do to your customers. It’s also way too expensive if you only upload a couple per month. Why not offer a package you can buy? Like if I could buy X amount of transcripts for $10, I would consider doing that.

6 years ago, Livipeace24

I’m in love

Ok, so I downloaded this app super quick because I needed a way to transcribe an interview that I did, but I didn’t want to pay. Usually I just listen through and type along, but as this was a feature so the interview was quite a bit longer than normal. Not only can you record in the app, but you can also upload audio files from other sources. It takes about the time length of the interview itself, and while it doesn’t get every word perfect, you can click through the transcript and it will play the audio file in the background as follows through, highlighting the written part that went with the audio that’s playing. It’s a really helpful feature to check back and make sure the quotes are accurate. This app saved me so much time, and even without paying you get 10hours of transcriptions per month.

3 years ago, StrangerThingsChick

Great app, but annoying bugs :(

I’ve recently started using this app for conducting interviews at my school, since I’m apart of the newspaper club, and It’s super convenient! However, theres been some weird glitches and bugs that have been making the app hard to use. First, whenever I highlight text in the transcript, I can’t un-highlight it and it gets pretty annoying. It also never highlights what I want, and always messes up my text. Another thing is that when you sort a recording into a folder, you can’t take it out, and your left very unorganized. It would be great if you could look into these bugs and fix them, since I look forward to using this app more in the future! I also suggest that you add some more organizing features like being able to underline text, different highlight colors, a way to trim audio-recordings, and more. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my review, and I hope you can consider these suggestions and fix the bugs :)

4 years ago, PonderingBob

Otter delivers like nothing else

I use this app for classes. Much of the vocabulary is unique to the course of study and is often distorted by other speech to text options. Otter gets it right almost every time and it seems to have improved as I used it. I noticed that it corrects the text on the fly. I don’t know if someone is listening or if it is real ai contextualizing the speech to find the appropriate solution but, whatever it is, I love the service. I pay when I need to and drop the paid option when I no longer need it. I would not have paid for this app at all if they tried to force me into a one year plan at the current rate. Here’s what I would like to see: Integration with Evernote and other note options. I don’t like having to have my notes held hostage in this app. I paid for the service when I needed it but cannot now export those notes. I don’t need to keep my current notes but this will impact my long term thinking.

5 years ago, BG124C41

Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

There are aspects of making Otter work, specifically editing text into a finished product, that are frustratingly obscure. It’s not for use by the time-challenged. Take your time to learn it well before you use it while facing a deadline. The delay waiting for the transcription process is both understandable and mightily annoying. The process’s inability to recognize a question, for example, that should be obvious from the structure of the sentence, and to add a question mark rather than a period, can require a huge amount of editing time. Similarly, Otter seems to randomly interpret long pauses, sometimes representing them with periods and other times ignoring them altogether. That’s one of the most frequent items requiring correction. There is little point in continuing this list unless the Otter team is reading it. If you can benefit from an approximate transcript accompanied by disambiguating audio, this app is a blessing. If you need a verbatim account of what was said, plan to put in substantial time making corrections. Finally, this app would be of great benefit if the editing process could take place collaboratively in the cloud, and if it could begin on the part of the file that had already been processed. Perhaps there is already a means of doing this, but it seems it would be very clumsy. Clumsy and collaboration are not comfortable companions.

4 years ago, abelmallory

Great tool, but DESPERATELY needs a few features

Reorder/Sort by Function — This is my biggest complaint with Otter. It would be SO helpful if AFTER you added recordings to a folder, you could reorder them or choose to sort them by anything other than the date you added them in. Right now, you’re stuck with them in the order they are added in, and it’s super frustrating. Sub folders — Folders are nice, but I have a pro account and my folders are getting too numerous to be easily manageable. Renaming — Right now, the only way to rename recordings is to individually open them, rename them, and then close them. This process is slow and clunky - particularly because you can only view like 16 characters of the name as you’re typing into the box. If you could rename recordings from the same page you view them from, that would be a lot better. The font would be smaller, and you wouldn’t have to wait for wait for each recording to load in its entirety before renaming it. Find/Replace Function — There are some words that are specific to particular fields of work that the AI gets consistently wrong, even if you manage to think of all of them and put them in your vocabulary ahead of time. If there were a find/replace option, correcting these errors would be a lot easier than having to control F and fix them all individually.

1 year ago, KatMill80

Great for work meetings!

This app has been an invaluable tool for me in my job over the past couple of years. As someone who frequently uses Zoom for meetings with 15-20 people, taking accurate minutes can be quite challenging, especially when everyone is talking at once. However, this app has been a true lifesaver, allowing me to transcribe minutes, notes, and summaries of my meetings with great accuracy and ease. I particularly appreciate the feature that allows the app to learn the names of speakers, which helps me to organize my notes more efficiently. Additionally, I can easily highlight and add summaries, which has made my job much more efficient. Overall, I highly recommend this app to anyone who needs to take a lot of notes and provide minute summaries for meetings.

2 years ago, deanrosenthal

Poor quality, surprised at the strong reviews

I have the free version, but I believe that the paid version is the same with the exception of many features. The main job that this app is set to do is transcription, it is pretty bad at that, I typically have to spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour fixing up transcripts that are only 10 to 20 minutes long in audio. Honestly, I’m stunned. It’s better than doing it yourself, the transcription that is, but the transcription I’m using right now via Apple it’s not making any mistakes. I’m dictating this review, with no editing, as I speak. I would not recommend this app, although it’s what I’ve been using. If you can afford or find a better one, I don’t know I think they say this is the best on the market, it just shows how little we can do so far in 2022. It really is pretty bad, and the edit feature is unwieldy as well. I hope Apple buys this and makes it more user-friendly and frankly a much better tool.

2 years ago, mostlyGee

Very unhappy

This review is based on the recent plan changes. First, I use Otter to record a few quick (1-5 minutes) tracking notes each week. I was and continue to be impressed with the app on a technical level. The dictation accuracy is impressive and having the recording to back up any area that was captured inaccurately solves most of my issues. That said, actually correcting the text is not easy or particularly intuitive. Second, While I understand the company needs and has every right to make money, my decision to use the app was based on the understanding beyond the basics of free minutes, I would have access to the totality of my notes as needed for reference. Now that I am suddenly only allowed to see the last 25 of my notes without deleting or upgrading, I feel the company is holding my notes, made previous to the changes, for ransom. I believe any notes made previous to the tier changes should be grandfathered in and fully accessible without limitation. Access going forward can be limited to 25. If that is unacceptable I believe the company should provide a simple and free way to export those notes made previous to the tier changes. Lastly, I would have preferred to discuss this issue one on one and I am upset at the dearth of support response. I contacted you guys in September and still have not received anything beyond the auto reply. To be behind is one thing, to have no response 20 days later is a real problem!

2 years ago, Life is crap12

Quality of interface has gone DOWN

Otter has always been a godsend for me and it is still the most accurate automated transcription service I’ve been able to find, which is why I spend $12 a month on it, which is more than I spend on most streaming services. But lately the interface has been unfreaking usable and it is making me rethink, or at least resent, my investment. Everytime I highlight a sentence, it jumps me down to the bottom of the page and I have to scroll back up to find where I was. It does this EVERY TIME. It’s also gotten so slow in terms of the audio playback working and scrolling down and up the page. And it forces me to refresh and find my place in the transcript every couple of minutes. It’s gone from saving me time to almost costing me time. There’s no survey I can take so I am writing this here in hopes that someone at Otter sees it. Please work out your bugs !!!!!

5 years ago, Javi m1

Helps me get things done

I’ve used it for formal interviews, papers and work. Allows me to get things done - even in traffic, which can tie me up for hours. The transcription is quite good and getter better - it seems to keep improving. Very easy to transfer to written versions - which is a big plus for me. My only knock is the lack of clear instructions and that the writing on the screens is small and they don’t easily zoom in. Since I can’t be the only one using it while driving, they should bring in some designers of apps people use while driving - make it more user friendly for that environment. As an aside, wish the highlighting text features were a bit easier to use - works at times but then won’t turn on - can’t figure out how to clear. Used to more standard features in adobe or other readers.

5 years ago, MJ from CA

Wow! This works incredibly well.

I just used Otter for the first time for a *phone meeting* with a client. My client was *on speakerphone* - so I didn’t think there was any chance that it would really work. As such, I kept taking notes and switching between different apps on my iPad. So when I went back to the program & found out I could already hit keywords (Otter picks them out of your text) and jump to that part of the meeting, etc. I was really surprised. The transcription isn’t perfect, but I was having a phone meeting with my client on speakerphone, so I didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as accurate as it was. Additionally, you’ve got the recording synced up with the notes, so even if the transcription isn’t 100%, you can go back & listen & make an adjustment. Normally after a meeting, I’m trying to go back through my notes and deciphering my abbreviations to figure out what exactly was said - inevitably losing some of the conversation, spending all the time to try to figure out what actually happened, and time to clarify what my abbreviations meant - but this was SO easy. I am still learning as I’m going (May update this later ; )) but Thank you!!! This is awesome. You just made this meeting the easiest I can remember in ages. Wow!

2 years ago, Saintsfan 1966

Moving the wrong direction

I’ve used this app for several years. Even though I’m a light user I paid for the pro. I started using the app to transcribe some meetings recently and saw that my legacy account was converting to a pro at double the price. I figured no big deal until I saw the complete robbery of my minutes. 6000 to 1200 or whatever is absurd. The say it’s because of their innovation and their new services they’ve added to the pro. I won’t use those services nor would I meet with anyone who tried to surreptitiously record a meeting. My company uses TEAMS which already comes with transcription and it’s better than Otter so why would I go for this change. I’ll be cancelling my subscription tonight. I wish them luck with their business model. They’ll learn soon enough not to mess over the early adopters and users who don’t need more digital assistants to perform redundant services.

5 years ago, aswjut

Best Transcription App

I normally don’t pay for the “upgraded” version of many apps but this one is 100% worth it! As a previous Administrative Assistant I wish I had this app; however, in my current role this app is so helpful in recording meetings and helping my minutes and notes go smoothly. Of course not every transcription is going to be 100% accurate (because technology is not perfect) but that is where the clear and concise sound on this app comes in to play. I think it records better than any recorder I’ve ever used! The transcription is about 85% accurate depending on who is talking. My minutes and notes go by so much faster with this application. The free version is amazing but I take so many minutes at various minutes I had to buy because... why not??? So download this app! It’s the best one I’ve found to date!!!

3 years ago, My_2Sense

My go to for all things transcribed

I can’t stand typing, but have been an incurable list maker since the beginning of time (as I know it). No checklist apps seem to measure up, so I made Otter into one! Simply put, I just record my lists with my voice and upload them to Otter to be transcribed. ‘Wola!!’, the perfect answer to satisfy my need to write without any typing at all! 😀Yay me!! 😁 One thing I do wish that the developers would consider: Please make transcription recognize a numbering system or a way to automatically go to the “next line” or “new line” seamlessly without needing so much editing. It’s impossible to do this quickly and easily, so I may just have to keep searching and spend my $10/month elsewhere. I’d pay twice that much for a service that has it all!!

6 years ago, Modalman

knocked out by the quality of transcriptions

I am truly knocked out by the quality of the transcriptions from audio recordings and specifically, it's not just the accuracy it's the way the recording are presented as a transcript with time codes and "word-by-word" follow along. I work as a journalist sometimes to contribute to industry newsletters and record many 20-30 min interviews with quickly scribbled notes, on-the-fly noting the timecode for good quotes so I can go back to the recordings to extract them. This app just made my job so much easier, from the transcripts I can skip straight to the parts I know contain the good quotes, extract the text, and if needed I can listen to the snippets if occasionally it got the transcription not quite right for highly technical words or rough parts of my original recording.

1 year ago, Bigdaddycowgill

Honestly a great help when recording important things

Before I start, I wish to offer my sincerest apologies to the app developers for my previous “review”, in which I lashed out at this application for asking for a review when I was busy; I was having a very bad day and was under a lot of pressure at the time, and what I had written previously was extremely disrespectful and unprofessional of me, for which I deeply apologize, and it does not at all reflect how I feel about this app or its developers. This app is wonderful and has been a lifesaver time and time again in my college studies. I cannot recommend this application enough for those who are in similar situations to my own; you will not be disappointed.

6 months ago, Kernkraft235

Recorded a teams meeting without consent

I mess with this kind of stuff in my personal life, and used a personal email, and didnt connect any work account to this app. I disabled all the settings that would make it do anything automatically, even though i thought an additional step would surely be required for it to use MS Teams. I had the app installed for several months and it did nothing automatically or gave any indication it was aware of anything outside its sandbox. Well yesterday it joined a BIG work meeting while I was at home sleeping. The app did have iOS calendar permissions, but given how restrictive automation is on iOS im extremely surprised it was able to join a teams meeting! Maybe the meeting link on calendar allowed anonymous/public joining from the link? It couldnt have used my teams app because no explicit permissions were EVER granted on the apps side, ios, or teams/m365. This is probably my biggest tech blunder in the past decade

5 years ago, 1ofakindJosh

Best app for professionals.....no - really!

I just spent about 2 hours downloading a plethora of dictation apps and testing the same 10 min voice clip (previously recorded conversation between 3 people). One by one apps got deleted, until I got to Otter! I am so impressed with the voice engine - it picked up 98% of the conversation. Of course it comes with some typical recognition errors but they’re easy to fix with the user interface. It’s simple to use but so robust. The functionality of this app has some awesome features not found on other apps. Exporting comes with many options to suite your needs. My team is going to have a blast using this in our meetings. More time focused on the conversation versus scribing everyone’s ideas. Thank you Team Otter!!!

5 years ago, MikesMadness

Astoundingly good - astoundingly simple

First test at 9 member municipal meeting with iPhone X on the table. Good audio quality even for presenters not at the table. Transcription accuracy is remarkable. Don’t expect it to work perfectly if everyone interrupts each other. Identifying speakers was easy - after initial manual identification Otter was able to learn and apply speaker names to a 2.25 hour meeting. The 600 minute allowance for a free account is generous. Transcriptions/recordings can be shared with a link - no signin required. Great web integration & collaboration. I don’t need more than 600 minutes per month, but am going to try premium so I can train the jargon vocabulary our committee uses. This was the app of the day yesterday. Thanks AppStore, for me it’s the app of the year!

5 years ago, liabk5

So helpful!

I had to transcribe a 45 minute conversation for a final project for a class and I am surprised at how well this app works. I uploaded my file from my google drive, and while the quality of sound was worse than the original file, it wasn’t terrible. I was able to easily pick out words, even when someone stumbled over words, trailed off quietly, or we ended up talking over each other. The best part was that the app was able to, too! And with crazy good accuracy. There were a few misheard words or phrases, which is why I recommend making sure it’s correct yourself before submitting anything, but overall: SO GLAD I FOUND THIS APP. It literally saved me HOURS of work!

4 years ago, PHwannabe

Awesome software!

I’m using this app in journalism and couldn’t be happier with the results. Audio comes through pretty clean, with little background noise, and transcription is pretty solid. Yes, there are times the app has issue with getting it 100% right (depending on speaker’s distance from mic, accents, etc.), but it’s not much of an issues, as you can play the audio while it highlights portion of transcription it is playing, so it’s easy to correct. Often, I’ll email the text version to myself when on the go, and it helps expedite the writing process. I’d highly recommend it, as the developers seem to improve it all the time too :)

2 years ago, ElJefeTX

Great for Casual Users

Using Ottter’s free service was good for my needs as within the limited number of mins/mo. Graduating to the premium service and using it on a daily basis, Otter has been woefully inadequate. Errors are more tolerable and manageable if you’re working through a few hours of transcription, but moving that up to 10+ hrs/week, there is too much for me to review and edit, much less organize. Also, the summary feature isn’t helpful for my needs—it’s simply a list of key words that were captured in the recording. If you want anything resembling an actual summary or summarized points, you’ll have to do that manually. I would gladly pay $50 - $100+/mo for accuracy above 95% (ideally above 99%) and summarized points, or key take always, action items, etc. Otter’s accuracy is probably closer to 80-85%. Again, that was for me when I used it 2-3 hrs/wk. If settings can be optimized or I’m missing something, I’m willing to give Otter another chance. Otherwise, I’ll move to a service with higher accuracy and actual summary features. In short, Otter is probably the best option available for casual use. Power users will likely need to look elsewhere.

7 months ago, Mary Landgraf

Excellent Transcription

I’ve been using Otter for about three months and it has been an exceptional experience. I’ve used four other voice to text apps in the past three years and they all ended up frustrating me, but not Otter! The accuracy is nothing short of amazing, really. I mostly use it while walking outside or through my car’s Bluetooth while driving. Even with those noisy backgrounds the transcription is 95% accurate. It’s 100% when I’m in a meeting or a quiet space. I like that I can email or text myself both the text and audio. I also like that is doesn’t censor me and change cuss words to other words. The text summaries of the recordings has been extremely helpful for finding certain recordings when I forget to name the file! I was offered a promotional gift for this review, but I would have left a glowing review without that. Otter has made writing, organizing my thoughts and creating emails, memos and other writings easy and so much faster than sitting down at a blank page.

Description

OtterPilot™ your meetings with AI. Get a meeting assistant that records audio, writes notes, automatically captures slides, and generates summaries. Otter transcribes all your meetings, interviews, lectures, and everyday voice conversations in real time, so you can focus on the discussion. Get automated notes for: in-person, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. All notes are searchable, and shareable. Otter.ai is also available on the web. English only. Many Uses • Take meeting notes automatically, and share with teammates to keep everyone in sync • Record and transcribe interviews, lectures, podcasts, videos, webinars, keynotes • Provide live captioning to the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, ESL learners, and anyone with accessibility needs Record & Transcribe Live • Record instantly in one tap, with widget and shortcut too • Transcribe in real time (when online) with high accuracy • Highlight the key points to review later • Insert photos of whiteboard discussions, slides, etc. • Input audio via built-in mic or Bluetooth device Enrich Notes with AI • Punctuate, capitalize, and break paragraphs automatically • Identify speakers (after some training) • Generate word clouds and summary keywords; tap on a word to jump to where it was said • Automated Slide Capture during virtual meetings • Automated Summary after all meetings Share & Collaborate • Start a recording inside a group to share the transcript live • Invite group members to view, edit, and highlight collaboratively. All highlights will be captured in the Takeaways panel. • Within the Takeaways panel, add comments and assign action items • Share externally via links Search & Playback • Search the text so you don't have to scrub through the whole audio • Playback at adjustable speeds • Follow along the highlighted word as the audio is playing • Tap on any word to jump the audio to that spot Edit & Highlight • Edit the text to correct any errors • Tag the speakers to label the paragraphs and train Otter to identify speakers too • Highlight sentences in one tap Organize & Export • Organize conversations into personal folders • Copy to clipboard, or share directly to other apps • Export as PDF, TXT, SRT, MP3 Import & Sync • Import audio and video files • Sync your Zoom account to transcribe cloud recordings • Upload from other call recording apps • Sync your calendars to be reminded to record your meetings and auto-title your notes • Import your contacts for easy sharing Optimized for iOS • Start/Stop recording with Siri Shortcut & home widget • Record via AirPods • Sync with iOS Calendar, Contacts & Camera • Preview conversations with 3D Touch • Lock with Face/Touch ID • Print via AirPrint • Adjust font size with Dynamic Type Otter Pro • More playback speeds and skip silence • Bulk export • Choose either monthly billing or save big with yearly billing • Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase • Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period • Account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period • You can manage your subscriptions in Settings and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to your Account Settings after purchase • Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription “Otter.ai Is A Gem For Transcribing Your Recorded Thoughts Into Writing” - Forbes 2023 "Apps We Love 2019" – App Store "7 Best Apps of 2018" – Mashable "25 Best New Apps of 2018" – Fast Company We take security and privacy seriously. Your data is confidential and will not be transferred to third parties. You have full control to delete your data from your account. Need help? Check out our Help Center: https://help.otter.ai Terms of Service: https://otter.ai/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://otter.ai/privacy-policy