How to use voice notes and voice typing

Two ways to use your voice

They sound alike, but they do different things:

• A voice note is a recording. It sits in the note as a small player, next to your text, photos and lists, not in a separate app. It's made and kept on your device.
• Voice typing turns what you say into text you can edit like anything else you wrote. Memlow has no AI, so it doesn't do this itself: it uses the speech recognition your phone or browser already has.

Record when you want to keep the sound itself, or when there's no time to type. Use voice typing when you want the words on the page, ready to edit.

Record a voice note

1. Open a note, type / on an empty line and choose Voice note. Or start a new voice note straight from Home.
2. Tap Start and talk.
3. Tap Stop and save. The recording lands in the note as a small player, next to anything you've written, so a shopping list can carry a quick “and something for the neighbours” in your own voice.

Each recording can run up to 30 minutes, long enough for a lecture, a meeting or a long thought on a walk, and a note can hold more than one.

On the web, your browser asks before Memlow can use the microphone. If you said no, allow it in the browser's site settings. While you record, Memlow asks the browser to cut echo and background noise, and the microphone circle moves with your voice, so you know it's listening. On Android, the Quick note widget on your home screen can start a voice note, too.

Play it back and find it later

Every recording has its own player, with play, pause and a position bar to jump to any point. Tap the speed button to switch between 1×, 1.5× and 2×. Going back over a long meeting at 2× takes half the time.

Recordings are easy to find again. In Search, the Voice filter finds every note with a recording, and note cards on Home show a small Voice label. If you type the key points under a recording as you listen, Search finds those words too, because it looks through every word of every note.

Speak to type

1. Choose Speak to type.
2. Tap Start and talk. Your words appear as you speak, and you can pause and carry on.
3. When you're done, insert the text into the note you're in, or make a new note from it.

What you get is ordinary text, ready to edit like anything else you wrote. It's a quick way to draft a post or catch an idea while your hands are busy.

On the web, speak to type listens in the language Memlow is set to. To dictate in Urdu, Spanish or Hindi, switch Memlow to that language first. There's more on that in How to write notes in Urdu.

What works on the web and on Android

You can record voice notes in both. Voice typing depends on the speech recognition the device has:

• In the Android app, voice typing uses your phone's own speech service. Memlow uses the microphone only while you record a voice note or use voice typing.
• On app.memlow.com, voice typing uses your browser's speech recognition, and not every browser offers it. If you can't see Speak to type, your browser doesn't have it. You can still record voice notes, or use a browser that has it, such as Chrome or Edge.
• Without internet, recordings still work. Voice typing uses your device's or browser's speech service and may need a connection.

What stays on your device

Recordings are made and kept on your device. They only leave it inside the backups you choose to make. Google Drive backups are always encrypted on your device with your backup password before they upload, and a .memlow backup file, which holds every note, photo and voice note, is password-protected by default.

Voice typing is different, because the speech service belongs to your phone or browser, not to Memlow:

• On the web, some browsers, Chrome among them, send the audio to their provider to turn it into text, under that provider's privacy policy. Memlow says so right in the voice panel.
• On Android, when your language isn't available offline, your phone's speech service may send the audio to its provider, such as Google.

If that matters for a note, record it or type it instead. The privacy policy has the details.

Ideas, and keeping recordings safe

• Meetings and lectures: record the talk, type the key points underneath, and play it back at 1.5× later. A photo of the whiteboard can sit beside it, with its own caption, and an action item can carry a reminder for its due date. Lecture notes and meeting notes are good places to start.
• On a walk: catch a thought before it fades, then tidy it into a list when you're home.
• Half asleep: record a voice note in a dream journal entry and write it up properly once you're awake.
• At the doctor's: with their permission, record the advice you're given, right under your list of questions.
• Learning a language: record yourself reading new words, and listen back to check how you sound.

Google Drive backups and backup files include your recordings, so they come back with your notes when you restore on a new phone or computer. Without a backup, they go when the notes go: on Android, uninstalling Memlow or clearing its storage deletes all notes, photos and voice notes, and on the web, clearing the browser's data removes notes that aren't backed up, recordings and all.

Two more things to know. When you save a note as your own template, voice recordings aren't included. And in the Android app, sharing or saving a note that has voice notes makes a ZIP.