Guide · Members bonus

The Voice Memo Rescue: every memo on one board in 20 minutes

You have already written your next song. It is somewhere in your voice memos. This is the fastest way to get every recording in one place and find the ones worth finishing. Nothing here deletes anything: your originals stay where they are.

1. Pick your route

Where are most of your memos? On an iPhone with iCloud on, use step 2. iPhone only, use step 3. Windows, use step 4. Voice notes in WhatsApp, use step 5. You can mix routes; every file lands in the same Inbox.

2. iPhone plus Mac (fastest for hundreds)

Turn on iCloud for Voice Memos on both (Settings, your name, iCloud). Open Voice Memos on the Mac, wait for the list to fill, click one recording, press Cmd+A, and drag everything into a new folder on the Desktop. Then drag that folder onto your songdrafts board. Anything that is not audio is ignored.

3. iPhone only

In Voice Memos tap Edit, tick the recordings (start with the last year), tap Share, then Save to Files and pick a folder. Open songdrafts in Safari, tap Import audio and choose them from Files. Do it in batches of 50 or so.

4. Windows

Get the files onto the PC first (iCloud for Windows, or Save to Files then iCloud Drive). Then open songdrafts in Chrome or Edge and drag the folder onto the board. Our Windows guide has the details.

5. WhatsApp voice notes

On iPhone, press and hold the voice note, tap Forward, then the share icon, then Save to Files. Then import from Files as in step 3. Do the ones you know are songs; skip the shopping lists.

6. Spend 20 minutes, not an evening

Set a timer. Bring everything in first, then play the Inbox at 2x speed. You are not finishing anything yet, only finding what is alive.

7. Rename your top 10

Give the ten that still give you a feeling a name you will remember. "Car park chorus" beats "New Recording 412". Those ten are your rescue list.

8. Stack the takes

If two memos are the same idea, select both and choose Merge, so every take sits on one song, in order. Most libraries shrink by a third here.

9. Move the best one to Half written

Pick the one closest to done and move it right. That is the song you finish this month. The Finished Demo Checklist tells you when it is done.