MP3 to text converter for podcasts and recorded talks
You have an MP3 of a podcast episode, sermon or talk, and you need the words: for show notes, a blog post, search engines or listeners who prefer reading. Your todo.is agent turns the MP3 into a clean transcript with chapter timestamps, then writes show notes and pulls out the best quotes.
The prompt
- Transcribe the attached MP3: [ATTACH THE MP3]. It is episode [EPISODE] of [SHOW NAME], with [HOSTS AND GUESTS]. Write a clean transcript with speaker names and a timestamp at the start of each paragraph. Then add chapters (a timestamp and a short title every time the topic changes), a 120-word episode summary, and 5 quotable lines with their timestamps. Deliver [FORMAT].
What to change
- [ATTACH THE MP3]: Attach the .mp3 file, up to 50 MB.
- [EPISODE]: E.g. "42" or "the October special".
- [SHOW NAME]: E.g. "The Slow Kitchen Podcast".
- [HOSTS AND GUESTS]: E.g. "host Mara Lind and guest chef Owen Park".
- [FORMAT]: E.g. "a Word file with everything", "Markdown for my website" or "TXT plus an SRT for YouTube".
Example result
- The Slow Kitchen Podcast · Episode 42
- Host Mara Lind · Guest Owen Park · 38 min
- Summary
- Chef Owen Park explains why he closed his tasting-menu restaurant to open a neighbourhood bakery. He talks about cooking for regulars instead of critics, the maths of selling bread, and the sourdough habit that got him through a burnout. Mara asks what home cooks can learn from bakery routines, and Owen shares his weekly prep plan: one long dough on Sunday, three meals from it by Wednesday.
- Chapters
- • 00:00 Intro and why bread
- • 03:12 Leaving fine dining
- • 09:40 The first six months of the bakery
- • 15:25 Burnout and the sourdough habit
- • 22:10 Pricing a loaf honestly
- • 29:05 Owen's Sunday dough plan for home cooks
- • 35:30 Listener question and goodbye
- Quotable lines
- • "A tasting menu is a performance. A loaf is a promise you make every morning." (04:51)
- • "Regulars are better critics. They come back and tell you." (11:02)
- • "Dough does not care how stressed you are, and that helped." (16:44)
- • "If you cannot explain your price to a neighbour, it is wrong." (24:18)
- • "Make one thing slowly on Sunday and the week gets easier." (30:02)
- Transcript (opening)
- [00:00] Mara Lind: Welcome back to The Slow Kitchen. Today's guest walked away from a restaurant most chefs dream about.
- [00:09] Owen Park: That makes it sound braver than it was. Mostly I was tired.
- Formats you can ask for
- Word, Markdown, TXT, or SRT subtitles for a video version of the episode.
How to do it with todo.is
- Copy the prompt and fill in the episode, show, people and format.
- Attach the MP3 on the Today screen, or forward it to your agent by email or Telegram.
- Your agent transcribes the episode and writes chapters, a summary and quotes.
- Ask for more, like "a blog post from this episode" or make it a routine for every new episode.
Tips for a better result
- Chapters with timestamps help listeners skip to the part they want. Paste them into your podcast host's episode description.
- Publishing the transcript on your site gives search engines the full text of the episode to read.
- Give your agent the correct spelling of guest names and brand names first. They come up a lot.
- Check every quote against the audio before you post it on social media.
MP3 to text converter: FAQ
- How long does it take to convert an MP3 to text? Usually a few minutes for a typical episode. Longer files take longer, and you get a message when it is done.
- Can I get subtitles from an MP3? Yes. Ask for an SRT file and you get timed captions you can upload with a video version.
- Will it remove ums and ahs? In clean verbatim style, yes. Ask for full verbatim if you need every word as spoken.
- How large can the MP3 be? Uploads can be up to 50 MB, which covers most episodes at podcast bitrates.
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