How to transcribe an interview

Before the interview: record it well

The quality of your transcript is mostly decided before you press record. A few minutes of setup saves hours of "[inaudible]".

In person

• Choose a quiet room with soft furnishings. Cafés are charming and terrible for transcription.
• Put the recorder or phone between you, closer to the interviewee, on a napkin or cloth so table taps don't thump.
• Run a backup recording on a second device for anything you can't redo.

Remote (Zoom, Teams, Meet, phone)

• Wear headphones so the interviewee's voice doesn't echo back into your mic.
• Ask them to use headphones with a mic if they have them, and to sit somewhere quiet.
• Record your mic and the computer's audio as separate tracks if you can; it makes overlapping speech much easier to untangle. See how to record a Zoom meeting.

Consent

Recording laws vary by place, and some require everyone's consent. Researchers usually also need consent under their ethics approval, and HR teams under company policy. Ask at the start ("Is it OK if I record this so I can quote you accurately?") and keep their answer on the recording.

Choose your transcription style

Automatic transcription produces something close to clean verbatim. If you need full verbatim, plan extra time to add fillers and pauses back in.

Step by step: transcribing the recording

1. Make a draft automatically. Load the recording into a transcription tool with speaker labels. Phone apps work for short chats; for long or confidential interviews, a desktop tool is easier to work in.
2. Fix the speaker labels first. Rename "Speaker 1" and "Speaker 2" to the interviewer and interviewee (or participant codes). Check the short back-and-forth exchanges, where labels most often slip. More in how speaker labels work.
3. Proofread in one listening pass. Play at 1.25x or 1.5x and correct as you go. Pause on names, numbers and technical terms.
4. Mark what you can't hear. Use [inaudible 00:12:31] or [crosstalk] rather than guessing.
5. Add timestamps at each speaker change or every minute or two, so anyone can find the moment in the audio.
6. Check every quote you'll use against the audio, word for word, and note its timestamp.
7. Anonymize if promised. Replace names with codes and remove identifying details before sharing.

A simple interview transcript format

Copy this layout. The header tells future readers what they're looking at; timestamps and speaker codes make quotes easy to verify.

Interview: Product research, participant P07
Date: 2026-10-14 · Interviewer: Dana Kim · Recording: p07.m4a
Style: clean verbatim · Speakers: DK = Dana Kim, P07 = participant

[00:00:12] DK: Thanks for joining. Is it OK if I record this?
[00:00:15] P07: Yes, that's fine.
[00:00:18] DK: Tell me about the last time you shared meeting notes.
[00:00:24] P07: Last Tuesday. I wrote them up from memory, which
           took about half an hour. [inaudible 00:00:31] the
           action items were the hard part.
[00:00:40] DK: What made them hard?
[00:00:42] P07: Nobody agreed on who'd said what. [laughs]

Fill in the header first (project, participant code, date, interviewer, file name, style and speaker key). Then keep one speaker turn per paragraph, start each with a timestamp, and put non-speech in square brackets.

Using Hark for interviews

Hark is a free desktop app that records and transcribes on your own computer. For interviews, that means the audio never has to be uploaded to a transcription service.

• Record remote interviews on Windows or Linux: Hark records your mic and the computer's audio as separate tracks, with any call app and no bot joining. On a Mac it records the microphone only, which suits in-person interviews.
• Import recordings from a phone or recorder: M4A voice memos, MP3, WAV, video files and more.
• Speaker labels with names: Hark works out who spoke. Name each voice once; if you interview the same person again, Hark suggests their name.
• Fast quote checking: the word being said is highlighted during playback, and clicking a word plays from there. Slow down or speed up without chipmunk voices, and skip silences.
• Edit any line. Your corrections are kept and never overwritten.
• Fix speaker mistakes by marking who spoke on the timeline and updating the transcript.

Hark transcribes English only. Optional AI notes (subscription) send the transcript text to Claude; skip them if your consent forms or ethics approval don't allow third-party processing. Free use sends nothing anywhere.

Tips by role

Journalists

Transcribe the whole interview, not just the parts you remember, because the best quote is often one you didn't notice live. Keep the original recording with the transcript in case a quote is ever challenged.

Researchers

Agree a transcription convention with your team (verbatim level, brackets, participant codes) before the first interview, and follow your data-handling plan for where recordings live. Local transcription makes that plan simpler.

Hiring managers

Tell candidates you're recording and why. Transcripts help panels compare answers fairly instead of relying on memory. Keep them only as long as your policy says.

Related: every way to transcribe a recording and transcribing voice memos.