How to clean up an automatic transcript
August 27, 2026 · Updated September 7, 2026
"Clean up this transcript" is actually several different requests wearing the same phrase, and picking the wrong one is the most common way people end up disappointed with the result. What you actually want depends on what happens to the text next.
Just the disfluencies, or the whole thing?
If you need the transcript to still read as a faithful record of exactly what was said — a formal transcript, a quote, a legal or medical record — the right pass is narrow: Remove Filler Words strips out um, uh, and similar verbal tics without touching anything else, and Fix Transcript Grammar corrects grammar and punctuation without rephrasing a single word. Both leave the actual wording exactly as spoken.
If instead you want something presentable — Transcript Cleaner combines both of those passes in one step: fillers gone, punctuation fixed, wording otherwise untouched. That covers most of what people mean by "clean this up."
When cleanup isn't enough
Sometimes what actually reads badly isn't the fillers — it's the rambling structure underneath them. A transcript of someone thinking out loud, circling back, and restarting sentences needs more than punctuation fixes to read well. Rewrite Transcript is the one mode that goes further than cleanup: it restructures rambling or repetitive sentences into clear prose, while still preserving every fact and the original meaning exactly.
The distinction is worth keeping straight: cleanup removes noise without changing the signal, and rewriting changes the shape of the signal itself. Pick based on whether the transcript needs to stay a faithful record, or just needs to read well.