Send voice notes that turn into searchable text

Sometimes typing is the slow way to say something. You are between two meetings, your hands are full, or the idea is faster spoken than written — especially when it switches between Arabic, French and English mid-sentence. A voice note lets you just say it and move on.

The catch with most voice notes is that they trap the message inside an audio clip. A week later, nobody remembers which recording held that one decision, and you are stuck replaying clips to find it. Fada fixes that: record a voice note like normal, and on Business plans Fada writes it out as text you can read at a glance and find later with a search.

Record a voice note in seconds

You send a voice note straight from the message box at the bottom of any conversation — the same place you type.

Step 1 — Tap the microphone

At the right edge of the composer (the message box) there is a microphone button. Tap it, talk, and send. That is the whole flow: tap, talk, send.

• Speak naturally — you can mix Arabic, French and English in the same note.
• When you are done, send it like any other message.

Voice notes are free on every Fada plan, on phones and on the desktop. You do not need a paid plan just to record and send one.

Step 2 — It lands in the conversation like any message

The voice note appears inline in the channel or direct message, in order, alongside the typed messages around it. Teammates can play it, reply in a thread, or react to it — exactly the way they would with a normal message. If threads and reactions are new to you, our guide on messages, threads and reactions walks through them.

On Business plans, the note becomes readable text

Here is the part that changes how voice notes actually work day to day.

On Business plans and up, every voice note is transcribed automatically — in Arabic, French and English. Fada turns the recording into written text right inside the conversation, so the people who would rather read than listen can simply read it. No extra button to press, no copy-paste, no separate tool.

That matters for a team that mixes languages all day. Most transcription tools assume one language per clip and stumble when someone slides from Arabic into French. Fada is built for exactly that mix — it is one of the features we made specifically for Arabic, French and English teams, alongside full right-to-left Arabic across the whole app.

Why text beats audio for the team

• People read faster than they listen. A ten-second clip is quicker to skim as a line of text than to play back.
• It works in quiet places. A teammate on a noisy bus or in a silent meeting can read the note without headphones.
• Nothing gets lost in translation. When the transcript is right there in three languages, fewer messages get misunderstood or ignored.

The real payoff: you can search what was said

Because the transcript is plain text, a voice note becomes part of your searchable history. That is the quiet superpower here.

Say a colleague recorded a quick note three weeks ago — "let us push the launch to Thursday and tell the supplier." You do not have to remember which clip it was or replay a string of recordings to find it. You just search for a word you remember, like the supplier's name or "Thursday," and the spoken decision comes straight back as text.

To find it, open search and type what you remember. Our walkthrough of search and the command palette shows the fastest ways to jump to anything in your workspace. A spoken decision is now as findable as a typed one — that is the whole point of turning voice into text.

What is included

Transcription on Business plans comes with a monthly allowance of 300 minutes per seat per month — that is five hours of recorded voice per person, every month, written out automatically. For most teams that is far more talking than anyone does in a month, so in practice your voice notes just become text without you thinking about it.

And remember: recording and sending voice notes stays free on every plan. The automatic transcription is the part that lives on Business.

A few things worth knowing

• Business is one flat price for the whole team, not a charge per person — so adding teammates who send voice notes does not raise your bill.
• You can start free with no credit card and try voice notes right away; transcription is there to turn on when you move to Business.
• Fada can be self-hosted, so a team that needs its recordings and transcripts to stay on its own servers can keep them there.
• Background alerts use standard web push, so you get notified of new voice notes without installing anything from an app store.

If you live in your inbox of voice clips today, this is the upgrade: keep the speed of talking, gain the searchability of text. Pair it with the AI assistant and your team can even ask questions across everything that was said and written.

Ready to try it? Start a free Fada workspace, send your first voice note, and see it turn into text the whole team can read and search.