Bulk transcribe Instagram Reels from a spreadsheet
Upload a file with a column of Reel links. Each one comes back with its words in the column next door. Download the whole sheet when it finishes.
Drop a spreadsheet here
CSV, TSV or Excel. It is read in your browser, so the file itself never leaves your machine.
How it works
Four steps, and the file does not leave you
- 1
Put your links in one column
One Reel per row. The column can sit anywhere in the file and be called anything you like. Everything else you keep next to those links is left exactly as it was.
- 2
Drop the file in
The file is opened here in your browser. It is not uploaded, so nothing in the other columns leaves your machine. We read the link column and show you what we found before anything runs.
- 3
Check the column we picked
We guess by counting Instagram addresses, which is right almost every time. If the file has two link columns, pick the one you meant from the dropdown.
- 4
Start it and leave the tab open
Links go out a few at a time and rows fill in as the words come back. Running a file spends credits, one for each minute of audio. A link that turns out to be private costs nothing and gets a reason in its cell instead of a transcript.
Your file
What your file needs
One column, and it has to hold addresses rather than the words behind them.
- A link columnRequired
- Full Instagram addresses as text, such as https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxAmPl3C0d3/. Reels, ordinary video posts and old IGTV links all work. A profile address will not, because there is no single video behind it.
- Plain text, not a hyperlinkRequired
- In Google Sheets and Excel a cell can show a title while the address hides underneath. We read what is in the cell. Paste the address itself, or run Format then Clear formatting on the column.
- A header rowOptional
- Helpful, not needed. If the first row holds a link we treat it as data and keep it. If it holds names, we use them and add ours on the end.
- Anything elseOptional
- Post dates, account names, view counts, your own notes. Extra columns ride along untouched and come back in the same order in the download.
Output
What comes back
Your file, plus columns on the end. Nothing is moved or renamed.
- Transcript
- The spoken words as one block of text. Empty when a link failed.
- Status
- Either done, or the reason it did not: private, unsupported, too long, no words found.
- Duration
- Length of the audio in seconds, which is also what the row cost in credits, rounded up.
- Language
- The language the speech model heard, as a two letter code.
Bigger jobs
Thousands of links, without a tab open
This page reads up to 5,000 rows from one file, and it needs the tab to stay open while it works. Past a few hundred links there are two better routes.
A formula in Google Sheets
Paste a short script into your sheet once, then write=TRANSCRIBE(A2)beside a link and drag it down the column. The sheet fills itself in.
One HTTP endpoint
POST a link, read the words back. Run it from a script, a job queue, or whatever you already use to move data around. Six hundred calls an hour on a key.
Read the quickstartFAQ
Questions people ask
Reading the file is free and needs no account, because it happens in your browser. Transcribing spends credits, one for each minute of audio. New accounts start with 10, so a short file runs before you pay anything.
Five thousand from one file. Past a few hundred the browser tab has to stay open a long time, so the API or the Google Sheets script is the better tool for a job that size.
No. The file is opened by your browser and only the links themselves are sent to us. Whatever else the sheet holds stays on your machine, and the transcripts are put back together there too.
Its row says private and costs nothing. Credits come off after the words exist, so a dead link, a private account or a timeout is free.
Not yet. The tab is what walks through the file, so closing it stops the run. Anything already transcribed is still there when you come back, and starting again picks up from where it stopped.
A CSV opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets without anything else installed, and it keeps the file small. Open it and save it as .xlsx if you need the workbook back.
Yes. There is an API endpoint and a Google Apps Script you can paste into a sheet, which fills the transcript column in place. That is the route for thousands of links.