OpenAI Whisper API (curl)

Transcribe an audio file via OpenAI's /v1/audio/transcriptions endpoint. Set OPENAI_BASE_URL to use an OpenAI-compatible proxy or local gateway.

Quick start

curl -sS "https://api.openai.com/v1/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@/path/to/audio.m4a" \
  -F "model=whisper-1" \
  -F "response_format=text" \
  > transcript.txt

Defaults:

• Model: whisper-1
• Output format: text

Options

# With language hint
curl -sS "https://api.openai.com/v1/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@audio.ogg" \
  -F "model=whisper-1" \
  -F "response_format=text" \
  -F "language=en" \
  > transcript.txt

# With speaker hint (prompt)
curl -sS "https://api.openai.com/v1/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@audio.m4a" \
  -F "model=whisper-1" \
  -F "response_format=text" \
  -F "prompt=Speaker names: Peter, Daniel" \
  > transcript.txt

# JSON output
curl -sS "https://api.openai.com/v1/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@audio.m4a" \
  -F "model=whisper-1" \
  -F "response_format=json" \
  > transcript.json

Custom base URL

Set OPENAI_BASE_URL to use an OpenAI-compatible proxy or local gateway:

API_BASE="${OPENAI_BASE_URL:-https://api.openai.com/v1}"
curl -sS "${API_BASE}/audio/transcriptions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@audio.m4a" \
  -F "model=whisper-1" \
  -F "response_format=text" \
  > transcript.txt

API key

Set OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable before running commands.