Guides
Step by step, for organizers: plans for each occasion, and how to do the editing yourself with free tools.
By occasion
Who to ask, when to start, what to tell people and how to give it.
- How to collect voice messages for a milestone birthdayA two-week plan for a 50th, 70th or 80th birthday gift of voice messages from family and old friends.
- What to say in a voice message for a group giftPrompts and examples for a recorded message for a birthday, a leaving colleague, get well wishes, a wedding or condolences.
- How to organise a leaving gift for a remote colleagueOrganise a farewell for someone on a remote or hybrid team: messages across time zones, kept secret in Slack or Teams.
- How to collect retirement messages from colleagues past and presentGather messages for someone retiring after a long career, including former colleagues, and present them at the party.
- How to send Christmas messages from family who can't be thereA December plan for a Christmas recording from relatives and friends who will not be home this year.
- How to send get well messages from a group to someone in hospitalCollect get well messages from friends, family or colleagues for someone in hospital or recovering at home.
- How to collect messages for a 25th, 40th or 50th anniversaryA plan for a golden, ruby or silver anniversary gift of voice messages from children, grandchildren and old friends.
- How to include wedding guests who can't attendCollect voice messages from family and friends who cannot come to a wedding, to play at the reception or give afterwards.
- How to send condolences from a groupGather condolences and memories from friends, colleagues or a community for someone who is grieving.
Do it yourself
Collecting and combining voice messages by hand, with free tools.
- How to combine voice messages into one audio fileJoin voice messages from different phones into one MP3 with Audacity, GarageBand, QuickTime or ffmpeg, levelling the volume.
- How to save WhatsApp voice notes and merge them into one recordingSave WhatsApp voice notes from iPhone or Android (they are .opus files) and merge them into one MP3.
- How to combine voice memos from several people on iPhone or MacVoice Memos cannot merge recordings; how to share them as .m4a files and join them with GarageBand, QuickTime or Audacity.
- How to collect voice messages from a group for a surpriseCollect voice messages from many people via a WhatsApp group, Dropbox File Request, Google Forms or email, and what each asks of contributors.
- How to make an audio guestbook without renting a phoneBuild an audio guestbook from a rotary phone, use a voicemail number, or collect voice messages by link, instead of renting a phone.