Online voice recorder, nothing uploaded

What happens when you press Record

The browser asks for the microphone at that moment and not before. The page does not check your devices when it loads and does not open a stream early to make the first press feel quicker.

While the tape runs you see the word REC, a lamp, a running counter and a level bar that moves with the sound. A muted microphone shows up in the first seconds, and if nothing reaches the microphone after about eight seconds the status line says so.

Pause holds the tape. Stop ends it and hands you the recording. Then you can play it back, transcribe it, save it to a file, or keep it in this browser.

Recording needs a browser feature called MediaRecorder. Where a browser lacks it, the record controls do not appear, and opening a file still works.

Keeping a recording, and only when you choose

A recording made here is kept only when you press Keep on this device, once for each recording. Nothing is kept automatically, and closing the tab without keeping it ends the recording.

A kept recording stays in this browser after you close the tab, and anyone who can use the device can play it.

The Kept on this device list shows each recording with the space it uses. Deleting one takes two presses, so a stray tap does not remove it. Delete everything clears the whole shelf.

A file you opened from disk is not offered for keeping, because the original is already on your disk.

Playing back, scrubbing and checking

The recording is drawn as sound: loud parts tall, silence flat. Press anywhere on the drawing and the recording plays from there, or drag along it. This is the precise control.

The reels above are the coarse control. One turn of a reel is a sixth of the recording. With the drawing focused, the arrow keys move a second at a time, and Home and End go to the ends.

What you hear is the 16 kHz mono sound the speech model is given. That is useful when you want to know why a word came out wrong.

If you transcribe the recording, the transcript follows the playhead, and pressing a line's time jumps the tape to that line.

Who records here, and why

An interview. Recording on this page keeps the audio in this browser tab until you choose what to do with it.

A voice note. Say it, press Stop, save the file or keep it here. If you later want the words, press Transcribe on the same page.

A statement. A recorded statement is a recording first and a transcript second. Keep the tape, correct the transcript against it, and export a numbered PDF whose lines can be cited by page and line.

Recording well, and what the page cannot fix

The level bar tells you whether the microphone is hearing anything. It cannot tell you whether the recording will be easy to transcribe.

Say who is in the room at the start. A spoken date, a name and a place cost a few seconds. They save a long search later, because the start of playback tells you which recording it is.

Before an important interview, record a few seconds, stop and play them back. A muted or wrong input is something you want to learn in the first minute and not in the last.

Saving a file hands you a copy to store wherever you choose. Keeping a take stores it in this browser. The two differ in where the bytes live, so pick the one that matches who else uses the machine.

More questions about recording here

Does the recording go to a server?

No. The audio is held in memory on your device. You decide what happens next: play it, transcribe it, save it as a file, keep it in this browser, or discard it.

Why is there a level meter?

A muted input is easy to miss while you record. The bar moves with the real signal, so you can see the microphone is hearing you.

What happens if I reload the page?

A recording you did not keep or save is gone. Press Keep on this device or save a file before you leave the page, and a transcript you want to keep needs downloading or saving too.

Is the tool still useful without a transcript?

Yes. It is a voice recorder first. Recording, playback, saving a file and keeping a take all work without ever pressing Transcribe, and without downloading the speech model.