--- title: "Record and transcribe interviews on Android, offline (2026) - Murlivo" url: "https://murlivo.com/record-and-transcribe-interviews/" language: "en" description: "Need to transcribe an interview on Android? Record it on any phone and get the transcript made offline on the phone, with the audio kept on your device." --- # Record and transcribe an interview on your Android phone Checked 1 November 2026 by the Murlivo team. Quick answer Put your Android phone between you and the person you interview, open Murlivo and tap the record button. Tap Mark at the answers you want to quote. When you stop, the phone writes the transcript itself, offline, and saves it with the audio in a folder you choose. The audio and the text are not sent to us or to any transcription service, which matters when the person spoke to you in confidence. **Murlivo for Android** Records on your phone or your Wear OS watch and transcribes offline on the phone. Free, no account. The phone alone is enough. [Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.odezio.murlivo) Journalists, researchers, students and anyone writing a family history face the same job: a long conversation that must become text you can quote. Sending that audio to a server is not always an option. Murlivo does the work on the phone, after a one-time download of the speech model, so the recording stays on your own device.[1][2] It works on any phone with Android 11 or newer. ## Prepare - **Download the voice model before you go.** Do it once, on Wi-Fi. After that, you need no signal, which helps in a basement, a train or a village with no coverage. - **Get consent on tape.** Start the recording, then ask the person to say they agree to it. Rules differ by country and by publisher or university. Murlivo makes no promise of legal or other compliance.[1] - **Set the language if you know it.** Murlivo detects the spoken language by itself, but if the interview starts with small talk in another language, choose the main one in Settings, under **Transcription language**. There are 20 to choose from. You can also choose it for this one recording on the record screen, right before you start.[1] - **Check the length.** A recording stops and saves itself after 2 hours by default. For a long interview, change **Maximum length** in Settings, or choose **No limit**. ## During the interview 1. Open Murlivo and tap the record button. 2. Put the phone on the table, about halfway between you, a little closer to the person you interview. Their voice matters more than yours. 3. Choose a quiet place. A cafe with music or a busy street gives more mistakes in the text. 4. Tap **Mark** when you hear a quote you will want. Marks are saved with their time. 5. Lock the phone if you like; the recording keeps going. Keep it face up, so nothing covers the microphone. 6. Tap Stop. Add a title, such as the person's name, if you want. Murlivo finishes the transcript on the phone and saves the note. ## How long the transcript takes Murlivo transcribes while you record, so part of the text is ready when you stop. The rest takes a while, because your phone does all the work. How long it takes depends on your phone. On one of our test phones, a recent flagship with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, the default **Small** voice model needed about 2 minutes 40 seconds of work for a recording of 7 minutes 44 seconds (measured on 11 October 2026). An older or cheaper phone takes longer. On the same phone, the **Accurate (larger)** model took about a third longer, so keep Small unless you need it. If a transcription takes far too long, Murlivo stops it to save battery and shows **Try again**. ## Check your quotes - **Search in note** finds a word and jumps between the matches, even in a long transcript. - Tap a mark to play from that moment, and listen before you quote. Speech-to-text makes mistakes, most often with names, numbers and words that sound alike. Always check a quote against the audio. - **Who said what.** In a recording of 3 minutes or more with two or more voices, the transcript marks each speaker (Speaker 1, Speaker 2). Tap a label to put in the person's name, or merge two speakers, for this recording. Check the labels against the audio too: they can be wrong.[1] - Fix the text in the app. If you want a fresh transcript later, **Re-transcribe** replaces it, and your edits are lost, so do that first. - Use **Share as text**, **Share as Markdown** or **Share audio file** to send it on, or **Copy transcript**. ![Speaker labels in an interview transcript: Speaker 1, Speaker 2, then Speaker 1 again.](https://murlivo.com/assets/phone-speakers.webp) Speaker labels in an interview transcript. ## Where the files go When you first open Murlivo, it asks you to choose where your notes go. Pick a folder; Murlivo writes each note there as plain Markdown, one file per day in an `Inbox` folder, with the audio in a subfolder.[1] Any text editor opens it. If you delete a recording in the app, the note and its audio in your folder are kept. ## Limits to know - Murlivo does not record phone calls: it cannot record while a call is using the microphone. For a remote interview, it only hears what comes out of a speaker in the same room. - It does not translate and does not write a summary. - There is no server copy. If you lose the phone, you lose what is not yet in a folder you back up.[1] ## Questions ### Does the audio leave my phone? Not when you record on the phone. Recording and transcription happen on the phone, and audio and transcripts are never sent to us or to any transcription service. Anonymous usage data never contains audio or text, and you can turn it off. The [privacy policy](https://murlivo.com/privacy/) has the details. ### Do I need an account? No. There is no sign-up, email or password. ### What does it cost? Nothing. Murlivo is free, with no ads and no subscription. For every current fact in one place, see [Murlivo product facts](https://murlivo.com/product-facts/). ## Sources 1. [Murlivo product facts](https://murlivo.com/product-facts/): version, platforms, price, recording limit, notes format and languages, checked 22 October 2026. 2. [Murlivo privacy policy](https://murlivo.com/privacy/): what stays on your devices and what is sent, checked 22 October 2026.