Transcribe CAF for Apple recordings, long audio, and app exports

What is a CAF file?

CAF (Core Audio Format) is Apple's container for audio, designed to handle very long or high-quality recordings without the size limits of older formats. It shows up in some Mac and iOS apps and pro audio workflows. Outside the Apple ecosystem, few tools read it.

How to convert CAF to text

SnailText turns a CAF into text locally, in four steps:

1. Open the Transcribe files screen in SnailText.
2. Drop in your CAF file, or a whole folder of them.
3. Pick your output: plain text, Markdown, JSON, or SRT / VTT subtitles.
4. Run it. The transcript is saved next to your files or wherever you choose.

The Whisper speech model transcribes on your own machine, so the audio never leaves your computer and there is no per-minute charge. CAF is a audio format, so SnailText uses a codec pack it downloads once inside the app. After that one-time download it works offline, and transcription runs fully on your machine.

You have a CAF recording from a Mac or iOS app and you want a transcript. Because CAF is Apple-specific and not widely supported elsewhere, a local tool that reads it directly saves you a conversion step. SnailText transcribes the CAF on your machine.

Free CAF to text converter, no upload

Most "caf to text online" tools upload your file to a server and cap you at a few minutes unless you pay. SnailText is the opposite: it transcribes CAF on your device, so nothing is uploaded, there is no length limit beyond your own memory, and the free tier has no per-minute meter. That makes it a fit for anything sensitive, recordings with names, client audio, or private notes, where sending the file to a web service is the thing you want to avoid.