Hear2Text

FLAC to Text Converter

Upload a FLAC recording, from an archive, a field recorder or an interview session, and get an editable transcript with timestamps in minutes. The language is detected automatically. The free plan gives you 120 minutes every week, no credit card needed.

Transcribe a FLAC file

Paste a link to the file, or press Transcribe to upload it

Free plan: 120 minutes every week. Files up to 500 MB and 6 hours.

Upload FLAC files as they are

Upload a .flac file straight from your recorder, archive drive or audio workstation export; no conversion is needed. Files up to 500 MB and recordings up to 6 hours are accepted on every plan. Lossless stereo audio is big, so a long session can pass 500 MB. In that case export a copy as MP3 or M4A at 128 kbps: the file becomes a fraction of the size and speech accuracy stays the same. You can also paste a direct link to a FLAC file hosted online instead of uploading it.

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What actually decides accuracy

Lossless storage keeps the recording exactly as captured, but for speech recognition the source matters more than the container. A close microphone in a quiet room gives up to 99% accuracy; wind, traffic, music under speech, people talking over each other and heavy accents bring it down. Speech from an old tape transferred to FLAC is still speech from an old tape. Hear2Text does not remove noise or enhance audio, so expect to correct a few words in difficult passages and listen back to anything you plan to quote.

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Ask questions about your recording

Once a FLAC recording is transcribed, ask the AI assistant about it in plain language. It answers from the transcript itself, which helps with a two-hour oral history or a long field interview you do not want to reread from the start. The assistant is part of the paid plans.

  • Summarize a long recording
  • Pull out names, dates and places
  • Find the moment a subject comes up
  • List the topics a recording covers
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How to transcribe a FLAC file

From a lossless recording to an editable, timestamped transcript in four steps.

  1. Step 01

    Upload your FLAC file

    Choose the .flac file from your computer or archive drive, or paste a direct link to it. Files up to 500 MB and 6 hours.

  2. Step 02

    Transcription runs

    The spoken language is detected automatically from 100 languages, and the whole recording is transcribed in one pass with timestamps on every segment.

  3. Step 03

    Review and correct

    Read the transcript next to the audio, jump to any timestamp, and fix names, jargon or unclear words directly in the browser.

  4. Step 04

    Export the text

    Download a TXT file on the free plan. Paid plans add SRT, VTT, Word and PDF, plus AI summaries and translation.

Who transcribes FLAC files

People who record in lossless audio and need the words, not just the waveform.

  • Audio engineers

    A sound engineer who recorded a panel in lossless stereo uploads the session and hands the client a transcript without exporting a second copy of the audio.

  • Podcasters

    A podcaster who keeps master files in FLAC uploads the finished episode and uses the transcript for show notes, quotes and, on a paid plan, SRT captions for the video cut.

  • Researchers

    An ethnographer back from fieldwork transcribes hours of recorder interviews, then checks each quote against the timestamp before it goes into the paper.

  • Archivists and libraries

    A library digitizing oral history tapes to FLAC uploads each interview and gets a searchable, timestamped text that makes the collection easier to catalogue and browse.

Why transcribe FLAC with Hear2Text

  1. No conversion needed

    Upload the .flac file directly from your archive or recorder. Hear2Text reads it without you converting or re-exporting anything.

  2. Any standard FLAC settings

    Files from field recorders and audio workstations are accepted as exported. There is no need to resample or change the bit depth first.

  3. Long recordings, 500 MB files

    Upload files up to 500 MB and recordings up to 6 hours long. Over the size limit, a 128 kbps MP3 or M4A copy transcribes just as well.

  4. Speaker identification

    Each voice is labelled Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on, on every plan, so an interview reads as a conversation rather than one block of text.

  5. Accurate on clear recordings

    Up to 99% accuracy on clear speech, with automatic detection across 100 languages. Noisy or overlapping passages are worth a second listen.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why use FLAC for transcription?
You do not need to, but if your recordings are already FLAC, upload them as they are. FLAC is common for archives, field recordings and interviews captured by audio engineers, and converting them just to transcribe wastes time. Lossless storage does not make transcription noticeably better than a good MP3; the microphone, the room and the speakers matter much more.
Are FLAC files too large to upload?
Sometimes. Uploads are limited to 500 MB per file, and a long stereo FLAC recording can pass that because lossless audio is large. Recordings up to 6 hours are accepted on every plan. If your file is over the limit, convert it to MP3 or M4A at 128 kbps first; that makes it far smaller without hurting speech accuracy.
Is FLAC transcription more accurate than MP3?
Barely, if at all. Speech recognition depends on how clearly people were recorded, not on lossless versus lossy storage. An MP3 at a normal bitrate keeps everything the model needs from a voice. Background noise, music under speech, overlapping talk and distant microphones lower accuracy far more. On clear audio expect up to 99% accuracy, whichever of the two formats you upload.
What bit depths and sample rates are supported?
Any standard FLAC file works, whatever bit depth and sample rate your recorder or audio software exported it at. There is no need to resample, downmix or change settings before uploading, and higher resolution neither helps nor hurts the transcript. The limits that do matter are the file size, 500 MB, and the length, up to 6 hours per recording on every plan.
Should I convert MP3 to FLAC before uploading?
No. Converting an MP3 to FLAC cannot bring back detail that MP3 compression already removed; it only makes the file bigger and brings it closer to the 500 MB upload limit. Upload the MP3 exactly as it is. The same goes for any other format: Hear2Text accepts MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, FLAC, OGG and more, so there is no reason to convert first.

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