Podcast episodes as searchable transcripts

Vocateca turns Apple Podcasts and Spotify episodes into timestamped text on your Mac, so an hour of audio becomes something you can skim, search, and quote.

Download for Mac
Episode list and transcript, side by side. Product screenshot coming soon.

How it works

  1. Add a show

    Paste an episode link or subscribe to a podcast by its Apple, Spotify, or RSS address.

  2. Transcribe locally

    Vocateca downloads the episode audio and transcribes it on your Mac — no cloud service, no per-minute billing.

  3. Read and export

    Skim the timestamped transcript, jump to any moment, and export to Markdown, SRT, or JSON.

Apple Podcasts

Paste an Apple Podcasts episode or show link. Vocateca resolves it to the underlying feed and transcribes new episodes as they publish.

Spotify Podcasts

Add a Spotify show or episode link. Where an open feed is available, Vocateca subscribes and keeps the transcript library up to date.

How it's different

Web transcribers upload each episode and charge per minute. Vocateca subscribes to the feed and transcribes locally, so a long back catalogue is just disk space.

Vocateca versus typical online podcast transcribers
FeatureVocatecaOnline tools
Where audio is processedOn your Mac, offlineUploaded to their servers
Cost modelOne app, no per-minute feesPer-minute or subscription credits
SubscriptionsAuto-transcribe new episodesOne episode at a time
Apple + Spotify + RSSYesVaries
TimestampsPer-line, clickableOften plain text only
Export formatsMarkdown, TXT, SRT, VTT, JSONLimited or paywalled
CLI + MCPYes — scriptable, LLM-readyNo
Back-catalogue costFree after downloadPay per minute, every time

In short: Subscribe once, and every new episode arrives already readable.

More to explore

Every export format

Markdown for notes, SRT/VTT for captions, JSON for pipelines. Pick what your workflow needs.

See export formats

Apple, Spotify & RSS

Subscribe by whichever address you have — Vocateca resolves it to the feed and keeps up with new episodes.

Private by default

Transcription runs on-device. No uploads, no third-party servers, no account required.

How privacy works
For power users

Transcribe from the command line

The same engine ships as a CLI and an MCP server, so you can transcribe a podcast episode from a script or hand it to an LLM agent.

Open-core: the CLI and MCP server are Apache-2.0.

See LLM workflows

Terminal

vocateca transcript https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id0000000000

Turn episodes into text you can search

Download for Mac