Speech to Text quickstart

Learn how to convert spoken audio into text.

This guide will show you how to convert spoken audio into text using the Speech to Text API.

Using the Speech to Text API

Create an API key
Create an API key in the dashboard here, which you’ll use to securely access the API.
Store the key as a managed secret and pass it to the SDKs either as a environment variable via an .env file, or directly in your app’s configuration depending on your preference.
.env
JavaScript
```
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=<your_api_key_here>
```
Install the SDK
- SDK
- CLI
We’ll also use the dotenv library to load our API key from an environment variable.
Python
TypeScript
Python
pip install elevenlabs pip install python-dotenv
Install the ElevenLabs CLI. Homebrew (macOS) and Scoop (Windows) are recommended.
Homebrew (macOS)
Homebrew (macOS)
brew install elevenlabs/tap/elevenlabs
Scoop (Windows)
Scoop (Windows)
scoop bucket add elevenlabs https://github.com/elevenlabs/scoop-bucket scoop install elevenlabs
npm
npm
npm install -g @elevenlabs/cli
curl
curl
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/elevenlabs/cli/releases/latest/download/elevenlabs-cli-installer.sh | sh
Working with an AI coding assistant? Run elevenlabs generate-skills in your project to write a SKILL.md for every command group into skills/, so your assistant knows the CLI's full surface without you pasting docs. Use --output-dir to put them elsewhere. This reads the CLI's own embedded API definition, so it needs no API key and works offline — and it stays in step with whichever CLI version you have installed.
Then authenticate — this opens your browser to authorize the CLI:
Bash
elevenlabs auth login

Make the API request

Create a new file named example.py or example.mts, depending on your language of choice and add the following code:

Python

# example.py
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from io import BytesIO
import requests
from elevenlabs.client import ElevenLabs

load_dotenv()

elevenlabs = ElevenLabs(
  api_key=os.getenv("ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"),
)

audio_url = (
    "https://storage.googleapis.com/eleven-public-cdn/audio/marketing/nicole.mp3"
)
response = requests.get(audio_url)
audio_data = BytesIO(response.content)

transcription = elevenlabs.speech_to_text.convert(
    file=audio_data,
    model_id="scribe_v2", # Model to use
    tag_audio_events=True, # Tag audio events like laughter, applause, etc.
    language_code="eng", # Language of the audio file. If set to None, the model will detect the language automatically.
    diarize=True, # Whether to annotate who is speaking
)

print(transcription)

Then run it:

Python

python example.py

You should see the transcription of the audio file printed to the console.

Download the sample audio, then transcribe it:

Bash

curl -O https://storage.googleapis.com/eleven-public-cdn/audio/marketing/nicole.mp3

elevenlabs speech-to-text convert \
  --file nicole.mp3 \
  --model-id scribe_v2 \
  --tag-audio-events true \
  --language-code eng \
  --diarize true

The transcription is printed to your terminal.

For medical and clinical audio, pass --model-id scribe_v2_medical.

Next steps

Batch transcription

Transcribe pre-recorded audio files with speaker diarization and event tagging

Realtime transcription

Stream audio and receive transcriptions in real time

API reference

Explore all Speech to Text parameters and response formats

Search documentation

Help Center

Speech to Text quickstart

Using the Speech to Text API

Next steps

Help Center