Desktop app
Sending a voice note from the desktop app
How to record and send a voice note in a team chat or a WhatsApp conversation, and how voice notes recorded on a Mac are written down automatically.
You can record a voice note in a team chat and in a WhatsApp conversation, from the 26.9.0 update onwards. Voice notes other people send you, from their phones or over WhatsApp, play in the conversation with a scrub bar rather than arriving as a file to download.
Before you start
- You are signed in to the Cradle desktop app on Windows or macOS.
- You are in a WhatsApp conversation, or in a chat with a colleague. Voice notes are not available on SMS.
- Cradle can use your microphone. Your computer asks the first time.
Recording and sending
- Press the microphone beside the box you write in.
- Talk. The level moves while you record, so you can see it is hearing you.
- Press stop when you are finished.
- Play it back if you want to check it.
- Press send, or start again if you would rather.
Nothing is sent until you send it. If you start again, the first recording is thrown away.
Voice notes are written down on a Mac
If you are on a Mac running macOS 26 or later, Cradle writes down what you said before you send it.
- You see the words first, and you can correct them or clear them.
- The words are sent with the note, so the conversation shows what was said and whoever receives it can read instead of listen.
- The recording and the words never leave your Mac. The writing down happens on your own machine, not on a server.
The first time you do this, your Mac may take a moment to get ready. It comes right on its own and there is nothing for you to set up.
On Windows, and on a Mac running an earlier version of macOS, voice notes record and send normally. They simply go without the words.
On WhatsApp, the words arrive as a second message
When you send a voice note on WhatsApp, the words arrive as their own message straight after the audio, rather than attached to it.
This is WhatsApp's own behaviour, not something Cradle chooses: WhatsApp shows a written caption only alongside a photo. Sending the words attached to the audio would mean nobody ever saw them.
If the note sends but the words do not, Cradle says so, and you can send them again.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| Cradle says the recording was not accepted | The note is kept, so you can try again. Nothing is put in the conversation, so the other person is never told about a note that did not arrive |
| No microphone level while you talk | Check your computer has given Cradle permission to use the microphone, and that the right microphone is chosen in audio settings |
| No words on a Mac | Check you are on macOS 26 or later. Earlier versions record without them |
| No microphone button | Voice notes are not available on SMS. In a team chat, check your organisation has team messaging |