How to turn a voice message into text
Voice messages always arrive at the wrong moment: in a meeting, on the metro, in the middle of a conversation. There's no way to listen and nobody to summarise it for you. Molnia sends such a recording back as text in a couple of seconds — your own voice message, someone else's, or one forwarded from another chat.
How Molnia differs from other bots
There are dozens of transcription bots in Telegram, and almost all of them answer with a verbatim transcript: a five-minute voice message becomes five minutes of reading. Molnia answers with the meaning — the first line is what the recording was sent for, topics follow as paragraphs, and the verbatim text stays under a button. The second difference is speed: five minutes of audio come back in about a second. The third is size: three hours and two gigabytes, against the twenty megabytes that bots on the ordinary Bot API run into. Telegram's built-in button transcribes voice messages too, but it's behind a Premium subscription and returns the same unbroken transcript.
How Molnia does it
Forward the voice message to @molniavoicebot in a DM — the text comes back in a couple of seconds: the first line is what the recording was sent for, then topics as separate paragraphs. The full-text button underneath opens the word-for-word transcript, and /mode makes it the default.
Someone else's and forwarded voice messages
It isn't only your own recordings. A voice message from another chat, a channel or another person is forwarded to the bot like any message — nothing to download, nothing to convert. In a group chat the bot handles voice messages on its own, replying under the recording: the first 100 minutes a month are free for the whole chat.
How many voice messages are free
In DMs you get 20 minutes of recording a month for free — ten to fifteen ordinary voice messages. Beyond that a subscription: 1,000 minutes for $5 a month. What counts is the length of the recording, not the processing time; /status shows what is left.
Common questions
How do I turn a voice message into text in Telegram?
Forward it to @molniavoicebot in a DM — the text comes back in reply. In a group it is enough to add the bot: it handles voice messages itself, replying under the recording.
Do I need Telegram Premium?
No. The built-in transcribe button is behind Premium, but the bot needs no Telegram subscription: it works on any account.
Can I transcribe someone else's voice message?
Yes. A forwarded recording — from another chat, a channel or another person — is handled exactly like your own.
Do I get a transcript or a summary?
A summary by default: the key point on top, topics as paragraphs. The word-for-word transcript opens with the full-text button underneath the reply, and /mode makes it the default.
What does it cost?
Free: 20 minutes of recording a month in DMs and 100 minutes a month for a group chat. Beyond that a subscription — 1,000 minutes for $5.