MP3 to text, free, in your browser
Drop an MP3, a podcast episode, an interview, a lecture or a recorder file, and Burncaps writes down every word as a script. Click any word to correct it, then download a text file in paragraphs, or SRT or VTT subtitles. Text and subtitle files are free without limit for MP3s up to ten minutes, with no sign-up, and an MP3 up to three hours opens too.
The file stays in your browser. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone, it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone. The service gets short pieces of sound, never the file itself.
- Free, no sign-up
- Text, SRT or VTT
- Click any word to fix it
- On a computer or a phone
Live preview, rendered on this page by the same engine that burns your video.
How to convert an MP3 to text
- Press Try it free above and choose the MP3, or drag the file onto the box. It opens straight on its script, with no video player to wait for.
- Let it listen. On a computer, English is heard on your own device, and our speech service is offered for other languages and for an MP3 over ten minutes. On a phone the sound goes to our speech service unless you tap Keep the sound on this phone.
- Read the script and click any word to correct it; one click changes it everywhere it was heard. Type names, brands and jargon in Names to spell right and our AI spells them right in the script (only the text goes).
- Press Text for a .txt file in paragraphs, or SRT or VTT for subtitles. Tick Times in the Text file first if you want each paragraph to start with its time in the recording, like [00:01:23].
Many podcast episodes are MP3 files, and so are the recordings of many dictaphones and recorder apps, the exports of audio editors set to MP3, and files people send you. If yours is an M4A, a WAV or an iPhone voice memo, it opens the same way: transcribe audio to text lists every file that works.
What an MP3's size tells you
An MP3 is compressed sound, and its bitrate, in kilobits a second, sets how big it is: kilobits a second times seconds, divided by 8, gives kilobytes. So the size of an MP3 tells you its length once you know the bitrate. MB below is a million bytes.
| Bitrate | One hour | Three hours |
|---|---|---|
| 64 kbit/s | 28.8 MB | 86.4 MB |
| 128 kbit/s | 57.6 MB | 172.8 MB |
| 192 kbit/s | 86.4 MB | 259.2 MB |
| 320 kbit/s | 144 MB | 432 MB |
Why the bitrate does not change the words
Every row is far under the 10 GB a long recording may be, so with an MP3 the length is the limit, never the size. Before it listens, Burncaps turns the sound into one channel at 16,000 samples a second, the rate its speech models work at, so a 320 kbit/s file is heard at the same rate as a 64 kbit/s one. What decides the words most is how clear the voice is: one voice near the microphone is written best, and music under it, people talking over each other or a far-off microphone bring more mistakes.
A long MP3: a lecture, a meeting or a whole episode
Up to ten minutes, an MP3's text and subtitle files are free, as often as you like. A longer one, up to three hours, gives its first ten minutes free (the text then ends at the last pause before ten minutes), and all of it as one of your free videos (2 every 30 days), in the 7-day Captions + Clips trial (free, no card), or with Captions + Clips or Captions. Past ten minutes Burncaps reads the MP3 a piece at a time, so even a three-hour file never sits whole in the page's memory.
How long it takes
On a 2020 MacBook with 8 GB of memory, 90 minutes of English were heard on the device in 8.8 minutes with WebGPU (5 October 2026), so an hour took about six minutes there; slower machines take longer. Our speech service is much quicker: before an MP3 over ten minutes is heard, a computer asks once which way to listen, each with its time, while your speech-service allowance covers it.
An MP3 on a phone
A phone opens an MP3 up to three hours, as a computer does. The sound goes to our speech service by default: while it hears an MP3 up to ten minutes, a line says "The sound goes to our speech service to be heard", with the button Keep the sound on this phone, and the phone remembers that answer for every later file. Without a paid plan the speech service hears three hours of sound in any 30 days; when the time you have left will not hold a longer MP3, the phone says how many minutes it needs and offers to listen by itself, with the page kept open.
Where the sound goes
The file stays in your browser. The speech service gets short pieces of sound and passes them to Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU, which by Microsoft's terms for the service stores none of it. The script's text leaves your device only if you type names to spell right or choose a translation (it then goes to our AI); ticking Keep everything on this device stops that. Transcribe without uploading shows how to check every request yourself.
Then make subtitles, or clips from the video
The SRT or VTT from the same script goes straight into YouTube, Vimeo or a video editor; audio to SRT is that job told in full. Captions burned into the picture and Clips work on a picture, so they need the video file: if the podcast was filmed, drop the video and Burncaps makes a captioned video from its words in 60 styles, free for 2 videos every 30 days with no watermark. Or choose Clips, and Burncaps finds the best moments and cuts each into a ranked, captioned 9:16 clip; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and Captions + Clips exports every clip, unlimited. The podcast clip maker shows it on a filmed podcast.
What it costs
Free: 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark, no sign-up. Then try Captions + Clips free for 7 days, no card. Captions + Clips is $29 a month for unlimited clips and captions; Captions is $9.98 a month or $49 once.
Questions, answered plainly
How do I convert an MP3 to text for free?
Drop the MP3 on this page, or press Try it free and choose it. Burncaps hears it and writes every word as a script; correct any word with a click, then press Text for a .txt file, or SRT or VTT for subtitles. Text and subtitle files are free without limit for MP3s up to ten minutes, with no sign-up.
Is there a size limit for an MP3?
An MP3 never comes near it. A recording over ten minutes may be up to three hours and 10 GB, and three hours of MP3 at 320 kbit/s is about 432 MB. With an MP3 the length is what counts: up to ten minutes its text and subtitle files are free, as often as you like; a longer one gives its first ten minutes free, and all of it as one of your free videos (2 every 30 days), in the 7-day Captions + Clips trial (free, no card) or on a paid plan.
How long does an hour of MP3 take to transcribe?
On a 2020 MacBook with 8 GB of memory, 90 minutes of English were heard on the device in 8.8 minutes with WebGPU (5 October 2026), so an hour took about six minutes there. Slower machines take longer, and our speech service is much quicker.
Can I get an SRT file from an MP3, not just text?
Yes. The same script gives SRT, VTT and ASS subtitle files, each line timed to the voice, up to two lines of 42 characters. The Text file is the words in paragraphs, with a time at the start of each if you tick Times in the Text file.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, for MP3s up to three hours, as on a computer. On a phone the sound goes to our speech service unless you tap Keep the sound on this phone, which the phone then remembers. Without a paid plan the speech service hears three hours of sound in any 30 days.
Is my MP3 uploaded?
The file itself stays in your browser. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone (short pieces of sound to Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU, which by Microsoft's terms for the service stores none of it).
Can it transcribe an MP3 in another language?
Yes, 59 spoken languages, the list in Listening settings. It listens first and names the language it hears above your script, with a one-click change.
Burncaps facts, checked 3 November 2026
What it is: a browser tool that burns animated word-by-word captions into a talking video, or finds the best moments of a talk, podcast or interview and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips.
Price: free for 2 videos every 30 days, each one recording with its captioned video and up to 3 clips, no mark and no sign-up; then the free 7-day Captions + Clips trial, no card (your email only); then Captions + Clips, $29 a month, gives unlimited clips and captioned videos, or Captions, $9.98 a month or $49 once, gives unlimited captioned videos. Captions paid once is not a subscription.
Privacy: the video never leaves your browser. The sound goes only to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off, on a computer only if you choose it. Because the video never reaches us, we cannot keep it or train AI on it, and we train no AI on anything you make.
Files: MP4 or MOV in, MP4 out. Captions on the whole video: up to ten minutes. Clips: up to three hours, on a phone or a computer. SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes; a longer recording, up to three hours, gives its script and those files (the first ten minutes free, all of it as one of your free videos, in the trial or with Captions + Clips or Captions) and its clips (every one found and shown before you sign up; up to 3 from each free video exported free, every one in the trial or with Captions + Clips).
Clips: about one clip for every two minutes of talk, up to 30, ranked, the ones we would post first circled, each showing the words it opens and ends on and the reason it was chosen; each cut to 9:16 with ums and dead air removed, an opening card and captions, framed on whoever is talking. Every clip of the whole recording is found and shown, free and with no sign-up; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and the 7-day trial and Captions + Clips export every clip, unlimited.
Languages and styles: captions in the language spoken, twelve Indian languages heard on your device, translation into 59 languages, 60 caption styles.
After it listens: correct any word (one click changes it everywhere), add or cut words, one to six words at a time, position, size, text and highlight colours, and names this browser remembers, all free and without listening again.
Made by: Jordan Labs Ltd, UK company no. 17358646.
Against other tools: sixteen caption tools compared, from the vendors' own pages.