I love this Google Messages feature because I never have to hear 3-minute voice notes again

I open my phone and see a blue waveform. It’s three minutes and forty-two seconds long, which somehow feels like an eternity for a single message.

I’m standing in the grocery store, wireless headphones nowhere to be found, when a friend decides to dump their entire existential crisis directly into my ear.

That’s my issue with voice notes. They’re convenient for the sender, who can talk while walking, driving, or cooking.

But I have to find a quiet space, listen, and pray that the point of the message arrives before the four-minute mark.

Thankfully, Google stepped in with something that might finally tip the balance back in our favor.

Reading beats listening when your brain moves faster than sound

The reason I prefer reading is that human speech feels too slow for my brain. Most adults read faster than they hear, and I’m one of them.

When I receive a three-minute voice note, I am forced to ingest about 450 words at a snail’s pace.

If that same message were text, I could read it in less than a minute.

Audio, even at x1.5 or x2 speed, doesn’t fix the problem. It’s still easy to miss names or dates.

When people ramble, I’m stuck buffering the first part of the sentence while they work their way to the point.

Audio isn’t like text. You can’t really skim it. One distraction and I have to rewind, find the missed moment, and replay it.

Reading is different. I can go back and re-read a sentence in a fraction of a second.

Voice notes give tone, but text plus audio is the best of both worlds

I know what you’re thinking. “But I love the sound of my friends’ voices! Text is so cold!” I get it.

A transcript gives you the content, but it strips away the emotional context that makes a voice human.

Audio gives you the rhythm and stress of speech that tells you if someone is joking, crying, or being sarcastic.

When someone sends a voice note saying “That’s great,” but with a heavy drop in their voice, you can tell they’re disappointed.

But here’s the thing. You don’t have to choose. The built-in transcription systems keep the audio and show you the text at the same time.

Read voice notes instead of listening — Google makes it possible

If Google Messages is your go-to texting app, it comes with a tool to fix the voice note problem.

To turn it on, go to Google Messages, tap your profile picture, and select Messages settings > Voice message transcription.

After it’s on, whenever a voice message comes in, you’ll see a View transcript button above the recording.

Tap it, and the audio instantly turns into text you can read without playing the message.

No headphones? No problem — transcripts keep your messages private

We’ve all been in that awkward spot, standing in a quiet elevator, a library, or a bank line, when a voice note comes in.

Without your headphones, you’re stuck with two bad options.

Either holding the phone to your ear like a 1990s walkie-talkie and hoping the volume isn’t too loud, or blasting your friend’s personal drama for the whole room to hear.

Transcription grants you privacy. With voice note transcriptions or live transcripts, you can read a personal message in a crowded room without anyone else catching on.

New ground rules for voice notes that make everyone happier

Since voice notes are here to stay, we really need some new ground rules to stop the audio from becoming an endless one-way talk.

• If your voice note goes over 90 seconds, it turns into a full-on podcast. If you have that much to say, give me a call.
• Before you send a voice note, drop a quick text as a title or subject so I can decide when to listen to or transcribe.
• If you’re sharing an address or a date, type it out as a follow-up. Don’t make me listen five times to find a ZIP code.
• If you’re recording in a windstorm or a loud bar, the AI will fail, and all I’ll hear is noise.

Transcription is the future, and it’s already happening

Google isn’t alone here. The tech giants seem to have realized that voice notes are harder on the listener than the sender.

Apple introduced automatic transcription in iOS 17, putting the text below the audio bubble in iMessage.

WhatsApp has been rolling out the feature globally as well.

If you have friends on WhatsApp, the days of enduring long voice notes are over, and I’m grateful.