# How to get a transcript of a podcast episode > Most podcasts never publish transcripts. Here is how to turn any episode, RSS feed, or audio file into searchable, editable text you can quote and keep. - Published: 2026-08-16 - Reading time: 3 min (~659 words) - Tags: how-to, podcast, transcription - Canonical: https://tautau.xyz/blog/podcast-transcript ## Key takeaways - Most shows never publish a transcript, which leaves their content invisible to search, skimming, and citation. - Paste an episode link, RSS feed, or audio file into tautau.xyz/transcribe and a speech model transcribes it. - A free account includes 15 minutes of audio transcription every month, no credit card. - Proofread names before you quote them: proper nouns are every speech model's weak spot. You just heard the perfect quote in a podcast episode, and now you want it in writing. This should be simple, but it usually is not: the majority of shows never publish a transcript, and the ones that do often bury it on a page you cannot copy from cleanly. Audio is a one-way street. Once an episode is out, its content is invisible to search, skimming, and citation unless someone transcribes it. > Audio is a one-way street. ## Why most shows skip transcripts Transcribing an hour of speech by hand takes four to six hours of work, and automated services charge per minute, so a weekly show faces a real ongoing cost for something listeners rarely ask about out loud. Hosting platforms do not generate transcripts automatically either. The result is a strange gap: podcasts are full of quotable, referenceable material, and almost none of it can be quoted or referenced without replaying the audio and typing by ear. - **4–6 hrs** hand transcription — to transcribe one hour of speech by hand - **15 min** free AI transcription — every month with a free account, no credit card - **200 min** tautau Base — for $3 a month, shared with the dictation quota ## What a transcript unlocks Text changes what an episode is good for: - Quoting accurately. No more rewinding thirty seconds at a time to catch the exact wording. - Show notes and summaries. Pull the structure of a long conversation out in minutes instead of re-listening. - Search across episodes. Find the one where they discussed your topic without scrubbing through a back catalogue. - Accessibility. Plenty of people would rather read an episode, or cannot listen to one. A transcript is the difference between included and excluded. - SEO, if you are the podcaster. A published transcript turns an invisible hour of audio into a page a search engine can read. ## How to transcribe an episode with tautau The tool at tautau.xyz/transcribe accepts a podcast episode page link, the show's RSS or Atom feed (it picks up the latest episode), or a direct link to an audio file: mp3, wav, m4a, webm, or ogg. Paste the link, and a hosted speech model transcribes the audio. This is genuinely compute-heavy, so it is metered in minutes: a free account includes 15 minutes of audio transcription every month, no credit card, which covers the occasional episode. Regular transcribers can move to 200 minutes for $3 a month or 600 for $9, shared with tautau's dictation quota. Long episodes take a few minutes to process, and the page shows a progress state while it works, so you can leave the tab open and come back. The finished transcript opens in a workbench where you can search, edit, and copy it, or download it as .txt or .md. If you are signed in, it also saves to your private history. > **The RSS feed is the easiest link** (tip): Paste the show's RSS or Atom feed instead of an episode page and tautau picks up the latest episode automatically. ## Honest expectations > **Budget the proofread** (warning): A clean studio recording usually comes out well; a noisy remote interview with crosstalk will not. Check the spelling of every name before you quote it. Speech models are good, not flawless. A clean studio recording comes out well; a noisy remote interview with people talking over each other will need a proofread. Proper nouns are the classic weak spot of every speech model, so check the spelling of names before you quote them. And because the audio is really being processed, a two-hour episode takes minutes, not seconds. For anything you plan to publish, read the transcript against the audio once. It is a fast pass, but not a free one. ## Getting started Sign up free at tautau.xyz, open the transcript tool, and paste the episode you have been meaning to quote. Fifteen free minutes a month is enough to find out whether searchable podcasts change how you listen. And if your interest in speech-to-text runs the other direction, from your voice into text, the tautau Chrome extension puts a mic button next to every text field on the web. Install it from the Chrome Web Store; a free account gets you five dictations a day, no credit card required. --- Markdown twin of https://tautau.xyz/blog/podcast-transcript — provided for LLM/agent consumption. tautau is a speech-to-text Chrome extension and web app: https://tautau.xyz