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Every 15 minutes

Transcribe audio uploaded to S3 into a Google Sheet

Every audio file you upload to your S3 bucket is transcribed, and the file name and transcript are added as a row in your sheet.

Runs
Every 15 minutes
Apps
AWS, Google Sheets
AI
Not needed
Access
IAM s3:ListBucket/GetObject, transcribe:*; Sheets write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, check my S3 bucket for new audio files, transcribe them with AWS Transcribe, and add the file name and transcript to my Transcripts sheet.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A research team records customer interviews and drops the audio in an S3 bucket. Someone is supposed to transcribe them, but it's tedious, so the recordings pile up and the insights stay locked in hours of audio nobody has time to replay.

Transcribing each file as it arrives and putting the text in a sheet makes interviews searchable and quotable the same day, and the team can tag and filter them like any other data.

What you get out of it

  • Searchable interviews

    Text in a sheet can be searched, filtered and quoted, which audio files can't.

  • No transcription backlog

    Each upload is handled within the hour, so recordings never pile up.

  • Keep your audio in your own account

    Files stay in your bucket and are transcribed by your AWS account.

  • One list of every recording

    The sheet doubles as an index of what's been recorded and when.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime looks in your S3 bucket for audio files it hasn't seen.

  2. It asks AWS Transcribe to transcribe each new file.

  3. On later checks, it collects transcripts that have finished.

  4. Each finished transcript is added to your Transcripts sheet with the file name.

  5. It keeps a list of files started and finished, so nothing is transcribed twice.

Before it runs live

  • Connect AWS
  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes
Transcribe audio uploaded to S3 into a Google Sheettoday, 9:00Succeeded
Google Sheets · Transcriptsaudio/acme-interview-0412.mp3 · 2026-10-14 10:32 · "We mostly use the dashboard on Mondays to plan…"

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other AWS and Google Sheets steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
transcribe_new_audio_in_s3_and_log_transcripts_in_sheets.pyexample
import boto3
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, report_fetched

SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"
REGION, BUCKET = "us-east-1", "northwind-files"

def aws(service):
    return boto3.client(service, region_name=REGION, aws_access_key_id=credentials.secret("AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID"),
                        aws_secret_access_key=credentials.secret("AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"))

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    s3, tr = aws("s3"), aws("transcribe")
    jobs = state.get("jobs") or {}
    keys = [o["Key"] for o in s3.list_objects_v2(Bucket=BUCKET, Prefix="audio/").get("Contents", []) if o["Key"].endswith((".mp3", ".wav", ".m4a"))]
    new = [k for k in keys if k not in jobs]
    report_fetched(len(new) + sum(1 for v in jobs.values() if v != "done"))
    for k in new:
        jobs[k] = "cr-" + k.replace("/", "-").rsplit(".", 1)[0][:180]
        tr.start_transcription_job(TranscriptionJobName=jobs[k], Media={"MediaFileUri": f"s3://{BUCKET}/{k}"}, IdentifyLanguage=True)
    rows = []
    for k, name in jobs.items():
        if name == "done" or k in new:
            continue
        job = tr.get_transcription_job(TranscriptionJobName=name)["TranscriptionJob"]
        if job["TranscriptionJobStatus"] in ("COMPLETED", "FAILED"):
            text = http.get(job["Transcript"]["TranscriptFileUri"]).json()["results"]["transcripts"][0]["transcript"] if job["TranscriptionJobStatus"] == "COMPLETED" else "(failed)"
            rows.append([k, job["CompletionTime"].isoformat()[:16], text[:45000]])
            jobs[k] = "done"
    if rows:
        build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values().append(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Transcripts!A:C", valueInputOption="RAW", body={"values": rows}).execute()
    state.set("jobs", jobs)
    return {"started": len(new), "logged": len(rows)}

FAQ

Common questions

Which audio formats work?
MP3, MP4, WAV, FLAC, OGG and other formats AWS Transcribe accepts. Other files in the bucket are ignored.
How long does a transcript take?
Usually a few minutes. The job is started on one check and the finished transcript is collected on a later one, so allow up to half an hour.
Can it tell speakers apart?
Yes. AWS Transcribe can label speakers; ask for speaker labels and they're included in the text.
What permissions does it need?
IAM s3:ListBucket/GetObject, transcribe:*; Sheets write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Transcribe audio uploaded to S3 into a Google Sheet” from your assistant

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