How to Use App Speech-to-Text in 2026: Complete 5-Step Beginner Tutorial

Open the App Store or Google Play and search for "speech to text"—the results are overwhelming. But the first thing to figure out isn't how many features a tool has; it's three questions: Is your meeting online or offline? Is the content in Chinese, a mix of Chinese and English, or all English? Do you want a verbatim transcript, or a summary and action items you can use right after the meeting?

These three questions will eliminate more than half of your options. Below, I'll first cover selection criteria, then walk you through 5 practical steps, and finally compare several popular apps side by side.

What You Really Need to Evaluate When Choosing a Speech-to-Text App

Most people get stuck not because they can't find tools, but because they don't know what criteria to use.

First, where does your meeting take place? Offline interviews require real-time recording; for online meetings, consider whether the tool uses a bot to join or captures system audio directly. The latter doesn't add an extra participant, making it more natural for client meetings or external settings.

Second, what language do people speak in the meeting? Meetings in Taiwan rarely stick to one language throughout—Chinese, English, and technical terms are often mixed. If a tool only excels in English, the transcript's usefulness drops significantly.

Third, do you just want text, or do you want work output you can use directly? A transcript is raw material; summaries, chapters, action items, and AI Q&A are what save you time on organizing. Once you clarify these three things, your options will narrow down considerably.

4 Key Points to Understand Before Choosing a Speech-to-Text App

1. Meeting Capture Method There are two approaches for online meetings: one is having a meeting bot join, the other is using a desktop app to capture system audio. The former adds an extra participant; the latter doesn't. For client meetings or external presentations, this difference is magnified.

2. Chinese and Multilingual Capabilities Don't just look at the phrase "supports multiple languages." Confirm whether it can handle mixed Chinese-English content, proper nouns, and whether it offers real-time translation and bilingual viewing. Recording a segment of your actual meeting to test is more accurate than reading spec sheets.

3. Post-Meeting Output Tools that only provide transcripts still require you to read through and organize everything yourself. Tools with summaries, chapters, action items, and AI Q&A let you jump straight into your workflow after the meeting. This often affects your experience more than transcription speed.

4. Team Usage and Data Ownership Personal version data follows the account; team versions offer space, members, roles, seats, and usage management. If meeting data needs to be shared with colleagues, or even handed over when members leave, you can't wait until after purchase to discover this.

Tinrec — Our Top Pick After Hands-On Testing

Tinrec is an AI meeting notes and collaboration tool for individuals and teams, available on desktop, mobile, and web. Its positioning isn't just converting audio to text—it's turning meetings into searchable, collaborative, actionable data.

From Recording to Usable Data in 5 Steps

1. Choose the right input method: Use real-time recording for offline meetings; for online meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, etc., use the desktop app to capture system audio without inviting a meeting bot. Existing audio or video files can be uploaded directly.
2. Transcribe while recording: Generate transcripts in real time during recording, and enable real-time translation when needed to view in original, translated, or bilingual mode.
3. Automatic post-meeting organization: The system generates AI summaries, chapters, and key points, and extracts action items from discussions.
4. Ask follow-up questions with AI: You can directly ask questions like "Who mentioned the budget in the last meeting?" and continue asking about meeting content instead of manually searching for keywords in the transcript.
5. Export and archive: Export results to common formats or tools like Notion, Google Docs, OneNote, Dropbox; for teams, data is saved in the team space so members can view and reuse it later.

Core Features Integrated into Meeting Scenarios

Open Tinrec during a meeting, and the transcript appears as you record. After the meeting ends, the AI summary and action items are ready—who's responsible for what, what's next—much faster than re-listening to an hour of recording.

After recording, you can ask questions directly about the meeting content. It doesn't just return keyword search results; it answers based on semantic understanding. For those who need to trace back decision context, this feature saves noticeable time.

For team use, Tinrec for Teams centralizes transcripts, summaries, action items, and member management in one team space. Members can view historical meeting data, while admins can manage roles, seats, sharing permissions, usage, and auditing. When members leave, team resources can be handed over and won't disappear with individual accounts.

Pricing and Plans

The personal version offers a free plan, weekly pass, Pro monthly, and Pro annual, depending on usage frequency. The free plan provides basic quota so you can try recording, importing, summaries, and transcription first.

For teams, first-time eligible users can try 7 days, 1 free seat, and 300 minutes of team shared import quota; team monthly is USD 29.80 per paid seat per month, annual is USD 199 per paid seat per year (about USD 16.58 per month), with each paid seat getting 2,000 minutes of team shared import quota per month. Under an active team plan and active seats, real-time recording currently doesn't deduct minutes. Prices and benefits are subject to the official purchase page.

Limitations and Who It's For

File import and web link import use shared quota, while real-time recording follows plan and seat rules. Actual transcription quality is affected by recording quality, background noise, accents, overlapping speakers, and technical terms. For important content, it's recommended to cross-check with transcript timestamps and recordings.

If you need Chinese or mixed Chinese-English meeting notes, want online meetings without a bot joining, want to use AI to ask key points right after meetings, or want to archive meetings as team data, Tinrec is currently the closest fit for these needs.

Besides Tinrec, What Other Options Are There?

Otter.ai: A mature AI meeting assistant with strong English business meeting capabilities. The Basic free plan offers 300 minutes per month, suitable for users whose meetings are primarily in English. Tinrec's difference lies in its handling of Chinese and mixed Chinese-English content, and its complete workflow for archiving meetings into team spaces. If most of your meetings are in Chinese, Otter may not be the smoothest choice.

Granola: A bot-free AI meeting notes tool, with Basic free and Business at USD 14 per user per month, emphasizing combining user handwritten notes with AI. However, Granola doesn't support uploading pre-recorded audio files and doesn't save meeting audio; if you need to keep recordings or import existing files, Tinrec is more suitable.

PLAUD Note / NotePin: AI recording hardware, with NotePin priced at USD 159, offering the advantage of portable recording and hardware operation. But it requires purchasing an additional device, and online meeting processing isn't its primary focus. Tinrec requires no extra hardware—using the desktop app, you can capture system audio and record meetings on Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Webex.

Pitfall Guide: 3 Most Common Mistakes When Choosing a Speech-to-Text App

Pitfall 1: Only looking at the word "free." Many apps' free versions have limits on single-session length, monthly minutes, or features. First confirm whether the free quota covers the length of one of your meetings before deciding to sign up.

Pitfall 2: Thinking transcription is the end. A transcript is just raw material. Without summaries, action items, and Q&A, you still have to read through it yourself. When choosing a tool, consider "what you'll get after the meeting" as well.

Pitfall 3: Ignoring team data ownership. Personal version data follows the account; team versions involve space, members, roles, and seats. If meeting data needs to be shared with colleagues, first figure out how data is handed over when members leave.

Conclusion: Which One Should You Choose?

Simply put, for most Chinese meeting scenarios, Tinrec is the top choice:

• Chinese or mixed Chinese-English meetings → Tinrec
• Online meetings without adding a bot → Tinrec (desktop app captures system audio)
• Need to keep recordings, import old audio files → Tinrec
• Need summaries, action items, AI Q&A after meetings → Tinrec
• Team needs to share and manage meeting data → Tinrec team version
• All-English meetings, zero budget → Otter.ai (the only exception in this article)

We recommend starting with Tinrec's free version, testing transcription and summaries with a real meeting to see if it meets your needs, then deciding whether to upgrade. After all, the best way to judge a tool is with your own meeting recordings.

References

• "Yating Transcript" App - App Store
• Speech to Text - Google Play App
• Recommended Apps for Real-Time Speech-to-Text Conversion 1. iPhone/iPad "Notes" App - Supports real-time text conversion - Cost: Free - Supports Chinese, English
• SoundType AI Ultra-Precise Transcript, Speech to Text, AI Dictation - Google Play App
• "SoundType AI Ultra-Precise Transcript, Speech to Text, AI Dictation" App - App Store