Video to text on iPhone — MP4 and MOV, transcribed on the device
LoroNote pulls the audio track out of an .mp4 or .mov and transcribes it on your iPhone or iPad — no upload, no re-export from a video editor first. You get editable text with sentence-level timestamps and speaker labels, exportable as TXT or as an SRT subtitle file ready for YouTube, Final Cut Pro, or CapCut.
- Input
- .mp4, .mov
- Output
- TXT, or SRT subtitles
- Where it runs
- On your iPhone or iPad
- Internet
- Not required
- Price
- Free download · $39.99 lifetime
How to convert a video to text
- 1
Install LoroNote and open it
The download is free and no account is created — there is no sign-up screen, because there is no server holding your transcripts.
- 2
Tap Import File
Choose the .mp4 or .mov from Files or iCloud Drive. LoroNote works from the audio track, so there is no need to export an audio-only version first — though doing so does make a multi-gigabyte 4K file easier to move around.
- 3
Confirm the language
LoroNote detects the spoken language automatically and supports over 100. If the recording is full of names, product codes, or jargon, add them to the custom dictionary first so they come back spelled correctly.
- 4
Let it transcribe on the device
Whisper Large V3 Turbo runs on the phone or iPad itself — airplane mode changes nothing. Keep the app open while a long file processes; it uses the device GPU and pausing it costs you time.
- 5
Review the speakers, then export
Rename the speakers, fix anything the room swallowed, then export. TXT is the transcript; SRT is the subtitle file, timecoded and ready to attach to the video.
Where the video usually comes from
Almost everything that lands on an iPhone as video is already MP4 or MOV — the two formats LoroNote lists explicitly:
- iPhone and iPad camera footage, recorded as .mov
- Screen recordings from iOS, QuickTime, or OBS
- Zoom, Teams, and Meet meetings recorded locally as .mp4
- Course, conference, and webinar downloads
- Camera and action-cam footage copied onto the device
How long it takes
Only the audio track is processed, so a 4K file and a 720p file of the same interview take the same time — what counts is the running length.
| Recording length | Time to transcribe |
|---|---|
| 5 minutes | about 16 seconds |
| 30 minutes | about 1.5 minutes |
| 1 hour | about 3 minutes |
| 3 hours | about 10 minutes |
Measured by LoroNote on an iPhone 15 Pro at roughly 19x real time. Newer devices transcribe faster; older supported models take longer.
What to know before importing a video
The picture is irrelevant
Resolution, frame rate, and video codec have no effect on the transcript. A 4K master and a compressed proxy of the same footage produce the same words.
Camera mic distance is the accuracy ceiling
Footage shot from across a room transcribes noticeably worse than a lapel-mic recording of the identical conversation. If a separate audio recording exists, transcribe that and keep the video for the picture.
LoroNote writes the SRT; it does not burn it in
Styling, positioning, and hard-coding captions into the frame stay in your editor. What you get is a clean, standards-compliant subtitle file.
It transcribes files, not URLs
There is no field for pasting a YouTube or Vimeo link. The video has to be a file on the device, which also means you can only transcribe footage you actually have.
Why footage is the worst thing to upload
Video carries more than words. It carries faces, locations, screen contents, and often the client work or unreleased material you are under contract not to circulate. Uploading a rough cut to a transcription service to get captions puts all of that on a third party’s storage, usually for longer than the job takes.
There is a mundane reason too: multi-gigabyte files and hotel wifi do not mix. Transcribing on the device means the largest file you own moves nowhere, finishes on a plane, and does not consume a monthly minute allowance you were saving for something else.
Common questions
Can I transcribe a video without an internet connection?
Yes. LoroNote reads the audio track and runs Whisper Large V3 Turbo on the device, so a flight or a basement edit suite makes no difference. Airplane mode is the simplest way to confirm it.
Which video formats can LoroNote import?
MP4 and MOV are the video formats the App Store listing names, alongside MP3, WAV, and M4A for audio. Those two cover essentially everything an iPhone, a screen recorder, or a meeting app produces.
Can I get subtitles from a video file?
Yes — export as SRT and you have a timecoded subtitle file with speaker labels intact, ready to upload to YouTube or import into Final Cut Pro, Premiere, iMovie, or CapCut.
Can I transcribe a YouTube video?
Only if you have the file. LoroNote does not download from a URL, so it transcribes videos already stored on your device. For someone else’s upload, that also keeps the copyright question where it belongs.
Does it separate speakers in a recorded interview?
Yes. On-device speaker identification labels each segment after transcription, you rename the speakers once, and the names carry through to both TXT and SRT export.
Related
- Subtitle generator (SRT) Timed .srt files from audio or video, with speaker labels, generated on the device.
- WAV to text Field recordings and uncompressed masters — 600 MB an hour that never has to be uploaded.
- Timestamped transcripts Sentence-level timecodes, tap-to-replay, and SRT export that keeps the timing.
Caption one clip before you commit
Import a single .mp4, export the SRT, and drop it onto the timeline you already have open.
Download LoroNote