noScribe

noScribe – Open‑Source, Local Audio Transcription Tool

Unlock high‑quality interview transcription right on your machine—no cloud required.

What is noScribe?

noScribe is a free, open‑source application for turning audio (or video) recordings into editable transcripts. It’s designed for researchers, journalists, or anyone working with recorded conversations. Built to run entirely locally, it uses modern tools like Whisper and pyannote for speaker‑detection and multilingual transcription.

• Works on your PC or laptop (Windows, macOS, Linux).
• Your audio stays your data—nothing gets uploaded.
• Supports speaker‑separation, multi‑language detection (≈ 60 languages), and includes a built‑in transcript editor to correct errors.

Key Features

• Local transcription: No Internet upload, ensuring privacy and offline operation.
• Speaker identification: Detects and labels different speakers in a conversation.
• Multi‑language support: Built on Whisper; varying accuracy across languages (strongest in English, German, Spanish).
• Transcript editor included: After transcription finishes you can open the transcript in noScribeEdit and fine‑tune speaker names, overlaps, timestamps, and more.
• Flexible output formats: Export to HTML (ideal for further analysis or QDA tools), VTT (for subtitles), plain text, etc.

Ideal For

• Qualitative researchers with recorded interviews who want to streamline transcription but maintain full control.
• Journalists working with source audio/video and needing a robust, offline tool.
• Small‑teams or independent creators who prefer open‑source solutions rather than cloud subscriptions.

Minimum Requirements & Known Limits

What you’ll need:

• A moderately powerful computer—slower machines will take a lot longer.
• Sufficient disk‑space (models + audio) — about 3.7 GB download size currently.
• High‑quality audio improves results: low background noise, clear voices, minimal overlap.

Limitations to keep in mind:

• Transcription is never perfect – manual editing remains necessary.
• Some languages/dialects get weaker results (Whisper supports ~60 languages, but quality varies).
• Overlapping speech and non‑verbal cues (laughs, etc.) may not be handled perfectly in automatic transcription.
• On slower hardware or long recordings, processing time can be extensive (e.g., 1 hour audio → multiple hours processing).

How to Get Started

1. Download the appropriate package for your platform (Windows, macOS, Linux).
2. Install and launch noScribe.
3. Select your audio/video file, choose output format (HTML/VTT/TXT), set language or leave “auto”, set start/stop times if you only want part of the recording.
4. (Optional) Enable settings like “Mark Pause”, “Speaker Detection”, “Overlapping Speech” depending on your needs.
5. After transcription finishes, open the transcript in noScribeEdit to review/edit, using the built‑in audio‑text sync.

Why It Stands Out

• Privacy‑first: Runs fully locally — no uploads, no cloud lock‑in.
• Research‑oriented: Designed with qualitative interview / social science contexts in mind (speaker labels, multiple formats, editability).
• Open source