Spotify now transcribes podcasts so you can read along. Here's how it works.

For those times when you don't have headphones, but you can't miss an episode.
 By 
Cecily Mauran
 on 
Spotify app on a smartphone
Spotify will now let you "read" your favorite podcasts. Credit: Getty Images

Auto-generated transcripts of your favorite podcasts are one of the new features coming to Spotify

On Thursday, the music and podcast app announced the ability to read time-synced transcripts of episodes so you can read as you listen.

The music and podcast app has been going hard on new features lately. In addition to podcast transcriptions, Spotify also announced AI-powered voice translation into different languages, shared "Jam" playlists for listening with friends in real-time, and a "daylist" that evolves throughout the day according to your listening habits. Along with podcast transcription, these new features are designed to make Spotify content more accessible and engaging — especially since your attention is a valuable commodity to the app.

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Via Giphy

Spotify podcast transcripts will be available to both free and premium users globally in the coming weeks, and will work with "millions of episodes."

If you like to read along, don't have headphones, or simply don't want to make sure you don't miss a word, here's how to use it. It's not live yet, so we haven't had the chance to experiment with it for ourselves, but according to the Spotify announcement, it's pretty simple. When you're listening to a podcast episode, scroll down the "Now Playing View" towards the bottom, which will show a preview of the transcription in action. Tap the upper-right corner of the preview to expand the card into full screen. The feature will highlight words as they're being spoken, so you can listen and read in sync.

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Cecily Mauran
Tech Reporter

Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on X at @cecily_mauran.


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