Read, Search and Highlight Podcast Transcripts in Macdio

Macdio writes a timed transcript of a podcast episode on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, uploads nothing, and syncs the text to your other devices, Apple TV included. You can then search inside episodes and keep the sentence you are hearing as a highlight, with the bookmark or by saying “Mark this moment in Macdio”. Highlights can go straight to Apple Notes, Notion, Obsidian, Bear, Craft or Readwise.

1. Play an episode of a show you follow.
2. In the full player, tap the transcript button, then “Transcribe on this device”.
3. When the text appears, tap the bookmark (“Mark this moment”) at the line you want to keep.
4. Find it later under “Highlights” on the Podcasts page.

Long press an episode (right click on the Mac) and choose “Transcribe”, or use the button in the player. Macdio downloads the episode and transcribes it on the device, in the language of the show’s feed. On iPhone, keep Macdio open: the job pauses if you leave the app. If the publisher ships its own transcript, Macdio shows that too.

A show’s page has “Transcribe new episodes”, on by default, but it acts only on episodes that were downloaded automatically. Turn on “Auto-download new episodes” for that show as well (“Auto-download” on the Mac). On iPhone it runs while the phone charges.

Settings > Podcasts > “Transcription Languages” lists the languages this device can transcribe, which vary by device. Some use the older dictation engine, which may miss more words and asks for Speech Recognition permission.

Tap the transcript button in the full player (the player panel on the Mac), then tap any line to jump there. Long press a line (right click on the Mac) for “Highlight This Line” or “Copy Line”. iPhone adds “Share Transcript…” in the top menu.

To search inside episodes, type in the Podcasts search field. Matches appear under “In transcripts” with the time, and a tap plays from that second. Search covers transcripts made on any of your devices, not the publisher’s files.

Apple TV shows transcripts with the “Transcript” button on Now Playing but cannot make them.

The “Chapters” button in the player opens “Chapters” and “Songs” (on the Mac they sit in the player panel). Chapters come from the publisher or from timestamps in the show notes. When there are none, “Generate Chapters” builds them from the transcript with Apple Intelligence. Apple TV shows them too.

“Summarize” in an episode’s menu writes a short summary from the transcript, shown on the episode row. Both need Apple Intelligence, or Private Cloud Compute on iOS 27 and macOS 27.

Open “Songs” and tap “Find Songs”. Song ID listens through the whole episode on your device and lists each song with its start time. Tap one to jump there or swipe to “Save”. The list reaches your other devices.

A highlight is one sentence of an episode with its time. Each mark snaps to the start of the sentence you were hearing, which is why the bookmark needs a transcript.

On iPhone and iPad, tap the bookmark (“Mark this moment”) next to the star in the full player, or in the transcript view, and you see “Marked at” with the time. To keep a line you heard earlier, long press it in the transcript and choose “Highlight This Line”.

On the Mac, click the bookmark in the player panel or compact player, or press ⌘M. Apple Watch has a bookmark at the bottom of Now Playing and a “Marks” list. In CarPlay the bookmark sits next to the speed button. A game controller can mark too: X on the Mac, and on iPhone any button you set to “Mark This Moment”.

Say one of these on iPhone, iPad or Mac, with AirPods, or in CarPlay:

• “Mark this moment in Macdio”
• “Highlight this moment in Macdio”
• “Mark this in Macdio”
• “Bookmark this moment in Macdio”

Siri answers “Marked.” and Macdio does not come to the front. Without a transcript, Siri says “This episode has no transcript yet, so there is no sentence to mark.” The podcast phrases are confirmed in English only.

Your recent marks collect under “Highlights” on the Podcasts page, and search finds older ones. Tap a mark to play from that moment. Long press it (right click on the Mac) for “Play from Here”, “Copy”, “Share…”, “Send to” your notes app, or “Delete”. Deleting asks first and removes the mark from every device.

A shared highlight carries the sentence in quotes, the show, the episode and the time, plus a link that opens the episode at that second in Macdio.

In Settings, under Podcasts, find “Marked moments” (on the Mac, the Podcasts tab) and choose “Send each mark to”. From then on each new mark goes there by itself.

Destination	What to set up	Where marks land
Apple Notes	Mac: allow Macdio to control Notes once. iPhone: “Get the shortcut”, then “Add Shortcut”	The end of one note, “Macdio Highlights” unless you rename it
Notion	A Notion connection added to the page, its token and the page link	That page, as a quote
Readwise	Your token from readwise.io/access_token	Under Podcasts, by episode and show
Obsidian	The note name (a path works), and the vault if you have several	The end of that note
Bear	A note with that title, made once in Bear	The end of that note
Craft	The page link from “Copy Deeplink” in Craft	The end of that page

Bear, Obsidian and Craft need their app on the same device. “Send a test to” sends a sample mark. The choice, one destination at a time, follows you to your other devices. On iPhone, a mark made from the watch or Siri while Macdio is in the background reaches Bear, Obsidian, Craft or Apple Notes the next time you open Macdio. For anything else, use the share menu on a highlight.

Feature	iPhone, iPad	Mac	Apple TV	Apple Watch	CarPlay
Make a transcript	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Read a transcript	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Chapters and songs	Yes	Yes	View only	No	No
Mark this moment	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Highlights list	Yes	Yes	No	Marks list	No

Transcripts need a show you follow, and the languages differ between devices. Following and downloads are in the podcasts guide; see also transcripts and highlights.

No. The transcript is made on your iPhone, iPad or Mac. Only the finished text syncs to your other devices through iCloud.

It appears only when the episode has a transcript, because a mark saves the sentence you were hearing. Transcribe the episode first.

It acts only on episodes that were downloaded automatically, so turn on auto-download for that show too.

Yes. Choose “Apple Notes” under “Send each mark to”, tap “Get the shortcut” and add it. The first run asks you to allow it.

Yes, with the “Transcript” button on Now Playing. Make the transcript on your iPhone, iPad or Mac and it syncs over.

Get Macdio on the App Store, transcribe one episode and mark the first line worth keeping. One purchase, every Apple device, no subscription.