Speechmatics transcribe remote audio: use fetch URL, no download needed

TL;DR

To transcribe remote audio with Speechmatics, use the fetch URL feature rather than downloading the file: pass the public URL and let the API pull the audio. This works in both the REST API and the Python SDK, and avoids large local uploads.

Steps

1. To transcribe remote audio with Speechmatics, use the fetch URL feature rather than downloading the file: pass the public URL and let the API pull the audio.
2. This works in both the REST API and the Python SDK, and avoids large local uploads.

When to use

You are seeing this: The feature lets the API fetch the audio from a public URL directly, so agents do not need to stream bytes themselves. Use this skill when you run into "Speechmatics transcribe remote audio: use fetch URL, no download needed".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Source: Speechmatics python SDK issue #54 (closed): users asked how to transcribe a remote audio file without downloading it first. Maintainer TudorCRL pointed to the fetch-URL feature in the docs and confirmed it was added to the Python SDK, linking a Stack Overflow answer with a working code example. The feature lets the API fetch the audio from a public URL directly, so agents do not need to stream bytes themselves.

Verified resolution: To transcribe remote audio with Speechmatics, use the fetch URL feature rather than downloading the file: pass the public URL and let the API pull the audio. This works in both the REST API and the Python SDK, and avoids large local uploads.

Source URL: https://github.com/speechmatics/speechmatics-python/issues/54