Whittle Support
Stuck or curious? Email hello@papermint.studio and a human reads every message, usually within a day.
How it works4
- Tap record and talk. The transcript builds on screen as you speak. A fast transcriber keeps pace with you on screen, and an accurate one writes the saved note. Both run on your iPhone. Tap Stop and save when you're done, or Pause and Resume along the way.
- Tap Mark while recording to mark a moment. Marks show as ticks on the note's player, and a tap on one plays from there.
- A note has two pages at the top: Notes and Transcript. Transcript is every word you said. With Apple Intelligence, Notes is a tidy version in your own words, and the note gets a title and suggested tags.
- Tap any sentence to hear it. Tap the title to rename a note. The ··· menu has Rename, Edit tags, Keep talking, Edit transcript, Whittle again, Translate, Pin, Move to notebook, Delete audio, keep text, and Delete note.
The free plan & Whittle Pro4
- The free plan is every feature for your first 25 notes, counted for life. Deleting a note does not give the slot back. The pill on the home screen shows how many free notes you have used.
- Whittle Pro is a one-time purchase of $9.99 (shown in your local currency) that removes the cap forever. There is no subscription and nothing else is held back.
- When your free notes are used up, the record button opens Whittle Pro instead of recording, so nothing is ever recorded and then refused. Your 25 notes stay yours to read, edit, translate, share and search.
- Pro comes with you to a new device through your Apple Account, and to your family through Family Sharing.
Restore a purchase2
- Already bought Whittle Pro, on this device or another? Open Settings in Whittle, or the Whittle Pro screen, and tap Restore purchase. Use the same Apple Account you bought it with.
- A family member with Family Sharing gets Pro the same way.
Apple Intelligence4
- Apple Intelligence is optional. It tidies notes, writes a title, suggests tags, and powers Rewrite and Ask your notes. Everything else works without it.
- It needs an iPhone 15 Pro or later. To turn it on, open the iPhone's Settings › Apple Intelligence & Siri, turn on Apple Intelligence, and wait for the download to finish. It downloads once.
- In Whittle, Settings › Whittling › Apple Intelligence shows whether it is ready.
- Without it, Whittle still records, transcribes live, titles notes from their first words, translates, searches, keeps notebooks and syncs. Notes saved while it was off are whittled automatically once it comes on. You can also open a note and tap Whittle it, or choose Whittle from the ··· menu.
Rewrite3
- Open a note and tap Rewrite. Pick Email, Message, Journal entry, Meeting minutes, Blog post, Bullet points, or Your own style… to describe your own. Needs Apple Intelligence.
- The rewrite opens as a third page next to Notes and Transcript, named after its style. From there you can Copy, Share, Replace notes with it, or Remove it. Rewriting again replaces it.
- Your own styles are saved for your other notes. Delete them in Settings › Rewrite styles.
Ask your notes2
- Tap the magnifying glass, type a question, and tap the Ask row under the field. Whittle answers from your notes only, on your iPhone, and lists the notes it used. Tap one to open it.
- You can also long-press the Whittle icon and choose Ask your notes, or say "Ask Whittle" to Siri. Needs Apple Intelligence.
Fix a word3
- In a note's Transcript, tap the word that came out wrong and choose Fix “word”…. Type the right word and tap Fix. If the word is in the note more than once, Replace all changes every one.
- The right word joins Words Whittle should know, so Whittle listens for it in new recordings too.
- To change more than a word, choose Edit transcript from the ··· menu, make your changes and tap Save. Leave Whittle again from the corrected words on to write the notes again from your fix.
Words Whittle should know2
- Add names, places and jargon in Settings › Words Whittle should know. Whittle listens for them when it transcribes. You can add up to 100 words, and they stay on your iPhone.
- Words you fix in a transcript are added here for you. Remove one from the same list.
Keep talking & playback3
- To add to a note, open it and choose Keep talking from the ··· menu. The new recording is joined to the end of the same note, and it doesn't count as a new note.
- The player at the bottom of a note plays at 1×, 1.25×, 1.5× or 2×, and skips 15 seconds back or forward. Tap it to open the full controls and your marks.
- Playback carries on with the phone locked. Use the Lock Screen or Control Center to pause and skip.
Recording from anywhere6
- Widgets: long-press the Home Screen, tap Edit › Add Widget, and choose Whittle. Record a note starts a recording in one tap. Recent notes shows your latest notes and a record button. Record a note also fits the Lock Screen.
- Control Center and the Action button: add the Whittle control in Control Center's edit mode, to the Lock Screen buttons, or in the iPhone's Settings › Action Button.
- Siri: say "Record a note in Whittle". Siri also knows "Open note" and "Ask Whittle", and your notes show in Spotlight.
- The app icon: long-press it for Record, Search, Ask your notes and Latest note.
- While recording, the timer, Pause and Stop appear in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen.
- A phone call or Siri pauses the recording. If it shows Paused, tap Resume. Switching headphones or Bluetooth keeps recording without losing the file.
Apple Watch4
- Whittle's Apple Watch app installs with the iPhone app. If it isn't on your watch, open the Watch app on your iPhone and install Whittle from Available Apps.
- On the watch, tap Record, talk, and tap Stop. To start from the watch face, add the Record a note complication when you edit the face.
- Each recording is sent to your iPhone and transcribed there. Until the iPhone is in reach, the watch shows it as Waiting to send to iPhone.
- A watch recording counts as a note toward the free 25. When the free notes are used up, it waits on the iPhone until you get Whittle Pro.
Importing audio3
- In Whittle, tap ··· on the home screen and choose Import audio. Pick one or more files (m4a, mp3, wav, aac, caf, aiff) or videos, whose sound is used. Each becomes its own note, transcribed on your iPhone.
- From another app, such as Voice Memos, Files or WhatsApp, tap Share and choose Save to Whittle. The note appears the next time you open Whittle.
- Each imported file counts as a note toward the free 25.
Search2
- Tap the magnifying glass to find notes by any word you said, across titles, notes, translations and transcripts. You can search within a tag. Search runs on your device.
- Tapping a result opens the transcript at the matching words.
Languages3
- Whittle offers every language Apple's speech engine transcribes in its own script. Pick yours in Settings › Language › I speak, or tap the language on the recording screen.
- Language packs download once. Until a language is on the device, notes in it are written out after you stop instead of live.
- The title and notes come back in the language you spoke. If Apple Intelligence can't write that language yet, the title comes in English and the notes are the transcript; the note says so.
Translation2
- Open a finished note and tap Translate to translate the notes on your iPhone with Apple Translation. If the language pack isn't on your device yet, iOS asks to download it first.
- Choose Back to original to flip back. The transcript is never translated. Translation works without Apple Intelligence.
Face ID lock2
- Turn on Settings › Privacy › Lock with Face ID. Whittle then asks for Face ID when you open it and after a minute away, and hides your notes in the app switcher. Your passcode works too.
- While the lock is on, the Recent notes widget shows no words. The iPhone needs a passcode set for the lock to be offered.
Export & sharing3
- Tap the Share button on a note to export it as plain text, Markdown or PDF, or share the recording as audio while it's on the device. The Copy button above Notes or Transcript copies that text.
- Export to a folder: in Settings › Export and sync, tap Export to a folder and choose a folder, such as an Obsidian vault. Turn on Keep folder up to date and each finished note is kept there as a Markdown file, in a folder per notebook. Edits update the file and deleting a note removes it.
- Export all notes now writes every note into the folder at once. Stop using this folder disconnects it and leaves the files where they are.
iCloud sync3
- If you use iCloud, your note text syncs through your own private iCloud: titles, transcripts, notes, tags, translations and notebooks. A new device, or a reinstall, brings them back.
- Recordings sync only if you turn on Settings › Export and sync › Sync recordings with iCloud. On another device, a recording downloads when you open its note. Turning it off offers to remove the copies already in iCloud.
- If iCloud is off, everything stays on this device only, and deleting the app deletes your notes with it.
Audio & storage3
- Recordings are kept until you choose a limit in Settings › Storage › Delete audio older than: 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. Your titles, transcripts and notes are always kept.
- To remove one recording now, open the note and choose Delete audio, keep text from the ··· menu.
- Settings › Storage shows how much space your recordings take on this device.
Deleted notes2
- Deleting a note shows an Undo toast for a few seconds. After that, it waits in Settings › Recently Deleted for 30 days before it is removed for good.
- In Recently Deleted, you can Restore a note, Erase it now, or Erase all. Erased notes cannot be brought back.
iPad, dark mode & VoiceOver3
- On iPad, your notes sit in a sidebar with the open note beside them. With a keyboard, ⌘N records, ⌘F searches and Space plays or pauses.
- Whittle follows the system's light or dark mode.
- Whittle works with VoiceOver, and every animation has a Reduce Motion form.
Common questions6
- My note has no tidy notes or tags. That's Apple Intelligence: make sure it's turned on and finished downloading, then open the note and choose Whittle it or Whittle again.
- The transcript didn't appear while I talked. The language pack was still downloading, so the recording was written out after you stopped. The next recording will be live.
- Transcription looks wrong or is in the wrong language. Set your language before recording, tap a word to fix it, and add names to Words Whittle should know.
- A note says it needs attention. Something stopped partway. Open it and tap Try again.
- Which iOS do I need? iOS 26 or iPadOS 26. Whittle uses Apple's newest on-device speech and language models, which only exist there.
- Does my voice leave my device? No. Audio and text stay on your device, and sync only through your own iCloud if you use it. See the privacy policy.
Something else?1
- Email hello@papermint.studio with what happened, your device and your iOS version, and we'll figure it out together.