Morse Code Translator

Type in the box above and this morse code translator converts your text as you type, in either direction. Play the result as a radio tone or an old telegraph sounder, flash it on your screen, or buzz it through your phone. Then copy it, share it, or download the audio. Everything happens in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server.

What is Morse code?

Morse code turns letters and numbers into two signals: a short one, called a dot, and a long one, called a dash, held three times as long. String those together with precise gaps and you can send any message using anything that switches on and off. A radio tone works. So does a flashlight, a car horn, or a finger tapping on a table.

Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail built the original version in the 1830s and 1840s for the electric telegraph. The version this translator uses, International Morse Code, was standardized in 1865 and is still the one defined by the ITU today. Ham radio operators use it every day. If you want the longer story, including why two versions of the code exist, read what is Morse code.

How to use this translator

The short version: type, listen, copy. Here it is in full.

1. Type your message in the text box. The morse appears in the other box as you type. It works in reverse too: paste dots and dashes and you get plain text back. Put a space between each letter and a slash between words, or the translator can’t tell where one letter ends and the next begins. That’s the mistake that trips up most people pasting morse from elsewhere.
2. Press play to hear it, or switch to light mode to watch your screen flash the message, or vibration mode to feel it on your phone. If the audio races past you, turn the speed down. Somewhere around 15 WPM with Farnsworth spacing (explained below) is comfortable for most beginners.
3. Copy, share, or download. Copy either box with one click, grab a link that reproduces your exact translation, or download the audio as a file you can text to someone, set as a ringtone, or drop into a video.

That’s it. No sign-up, no character limit worth worrying about, no watermark on the audio.

Understanding the output

Three things in the output confuse first-time users, so here’s what each one means.

Spaces separate letters. Morse for a whole word is a sequence of letter codes with a gap between each. In text form we show that gap as a space. Without it, the code would be ambiguous: the same run of dots and dashes can spell completely different words depending on where you split it.

A slash ( / ) separates words. In sound, a word gap is just a longer silence (seven units instead of three). On paper that’s invisible, so the written convention is a forward slash. When you see one, a new word starts.

A hash ( # ) marks unsupported characters. International Morse covers letters A to Z, digits 0 to 9, and a set of punctuation marks. It has no code for emoji, for most symbols on your keyboard, or for characters outside the Latin alphabet. Rather than silently dropping them, the translator marks each one with # so you know exactly what didn’t make it through.

One more habit worth building: read morse in letter-sized chunks, not signal by signal. Trying to count individual dots is how everyone starts and it doesn’t scale. More on that in how to learn Morse code.

The Morse code chart

The chart below lists every character this translator supports, from A to Z through the digits and on to punctuation like the period, comma, and question mark. Each entry shows the character and its code side by side.

A few patterns worth spotting before you scroll: the most common English letters got the shortest codes. E is a single dot. T is a single dash. The rarer the letter, the longer its code, which is why Q and Y feel like a mouthful. The numbers follow a tidy system of their own: 5 is five dots, 0 is five dashes, and the digits between them shift dot by dot.

Want this on paper? The printable Morse code chart has PDF and PNG versions sized for printing, and the Morse code alphabet page walks through every letter with audio.

The timing rules (1:3:7)

Morse has exactly one timing system, and once you know it, every speed setting on this page makes sense. Everything is measured in units, where one unit is the length of a dot.

A dot is 1 unit of sound. A dash is 3. The silence between signals inside a letter is 1 unit. The silence between letters is 3 units, and the silence between words is 7. That’s the whole system: 1, 3, and 7, straight out of the ITU specification.

Notice what this means: the gaps carry information. A dash is exactly the same length as a letter gap, and the only thing telling your ear which is which is whether it’s sound or silence. This is why sloppy spacing wrecks morse faster than sloppy signals do, and why this translator is as strict about its silences as its beeps. When you change the WPM slider, all seven of those durations scale together, so the code keeps its shape at any speed.

How the audio works

The playback controls do more than start and stop, and two of the settings deserve a plain explanation because almost nobody explains them.

WPM (words per minute)

Morse speed is measured in words per minute, but “word” has a precise meaning here. The standard reference word is PARIS, which comes out to exactly 50 units of time including the gap that follows it. So 20 WPM means the word PARIS could be sent 20 times in one minute: 1,000 units a minute, which makes each dot 60 milliseconds long. The math is simple if you ever need it: dot length in milliseconds = 1200 divided by the WPM.

For context, 5 WPM is a slow crawl, 12 to 15 WPM is a common conversational floor, and skilled ham radio operators chat comfortably at 20 to 30. A few can copy 40+ in their heads. Set the slider wherever your ears can keep up.

Farnsworth timing

Here’s the problem Farnsworth timing solves. If you slow morse down the obvious way, stretching everything equally, each letter turns into a slow drawl. You start counting dots instead of hearing the letter’s rhythm, and later you have to unlearn that habit at full speed. Painful.

Farnsworth timing keeps each character at full speed but stretches the silence between characters and words. The letters keep their true shape as a rhythm; you just get extra thinking time between them. In this translator that means two speed controls: character speed (how fast each letter sounds) and effective speed (how fast the message flows overall). Learners typically set characters at 18 to 20 WPM and the effective speed much lower, then close the gap over weeks of practice.

CW tone vs. telegraph sounder

The sound toggle switches between two very different eras.

The CW tone is the clean, steady beep you hear on ham radio. CW stands for continuous wave: the transmitter sends an unbroken radio carrier and the key simply switches it on and off. This is what morse sounds like in actual use today, and it’s what you should practice with if you’re learning.

The telegraph sounder is what an operator in the 1870s heard: not beeps at all, but the clack of an electromagnet snapping a metal arm down and releasing it. Operators read the code from the spacing between click pairs. It’s a wonderful sound, oddly percussive, and completely useless for radio practice. We include it because it’s history you can listen to.

Light and vibration modes

Sound is only one way to carry morse, and the code doesn’t care which medium you pick.

Light mode flashes the message on your screen: bright for a signal, dark for a gap, with a dash lit three times as long as a dot. This is exactly how naval signal lamps work, and it’s handy if you want to practice reading morse visually or use your phone screen as a makeshift signal lamp across a dark campsite. Turn your screen brightness up and the room lights down.

Vibration mode buzzes the pattern through your phone instead. Short buzz for a dot, long buzz for a dash. It’s silent, it works in your pocket, and it’s more than a novelty: vibrating morse is a real communication channel for deafblind users, and some accessibility devices are built around it. One note: vibration needs a phone or tablet. Desktop browsers have nothing to buzz.

Common things people translate

After watching what people actually type into tools like this, a few requests come up constantly.

SOS tops the list. It’s three dots, three dashes, three dots (... --- ...), sent as one continuous string, and it doesn’t stand for anything. Really. The full story, including the Titanic connection, is on the SOS in Morse code page.

“I love you” is the sentimental favorite, mostly for tattoos, engraved bracelets, and anniversary cards where the message hides in plain sight. The I love you in Morse code page breaks down the phrase and the jewelry conventions people use.

Names and short messages fill out the rest: kids encoding secret notes, puzzle makers building escape-room clues, someone checking what their own name looks like in dots and dashes. If that’s you, the Morse code phrases hub collects the most-requested translations with pronunciation-style breakdowns.

Is it accurate?

Yes, and here’s the specific claim. This translator implements International Morse Code as defined in ITU-R M.1677-1, the International Telecommunication Union recommendation that is the code’s official modern definition. Every character mapping comes from that document’s tables, and the timing follows its rules: a dash is three dots long, the gap inside a letter is one dot, the gap between letters is three, and the gap between words is seven.

Characters that ITU-R M.1677-1 doesn’t define are flagged with # rather than guessed at. Some sites invent codes for unsupported symbols; we’d rather tell you the truth. If you spot an output that looks wrong, check it against the chart above, and if it still looks wrong, tell us. So far the chart has won every time, but we’d genuinely like to know if it ever doesn’t.

FAQ

How do you read Morse code?

Read it letter by letter, not signal by signal. Each group of dots and dashes between spaces is one letter; a slash marks a word break. Look up each group in a chart until the common ones stick. By ear, listen for each letter’s overall rhythm instead of counting individual beeps.

What does the # symbol mean in the output?

The # marks a character that has no code in International Morse. The ITU standard covers A to Z, 0 to 9, and common punctuation, but not emoji or most keyboard symbols. Instead of dropping unsupported characters silently, this translator flags each one so you can see what was skipped.

Can I download the audio?

Yes. Press the download button and the translator saves your message as an audio file, generated at whatever speed, pitch, and sound style you’ve set. People use the files as ringtones, alarm sounds, puzzle clues, and video soundtracks. The file is created in your browser, so it downloads instantly.

Is my text stored anywhere?

No. The translation, audio, light, and vibration all run in JavaScript inside your browser. Your text never leaves your device, we have no server that receives it, and closing the tab erases everything. The site uses standard analytics to count visits, but that never includes what you type.

What does WPM mean?

WPM is words per minute, the standard measure of morse speed. It’s calibrated to the reference word PARIS, which is exactly 50 time units long. At 20 WPM, each dot lasts 60 milliseconds. Beginners usually start around 5 to 15 WPM; experienced operators copy 20 to 30 or more.

What is Farnsworth timing?

Farnsworth timing plays each character at full speed but adds extra silence between characters and words. You hear every letter’s true rhythm while still getting time to think. It’s the recommended way to learn, because slowing the characters themselves teaches you to count dots, a habit you’d only have to unlearn later.

Is it “dot and dash” or “dit and dah”?

Both are correct; they belong to different senses. “Dot” and “dash” describe written morse. “Dit” and “dah” mimic how the code sounds, which is why radio operators use them for spoken morse: the letter A becomes “di-dah.” If you’re learning by ear, thinking in dits and dahs helps.

How do I write Morse code on a phone?

Type your message here and copy the result, or download it as audio and send the file. For typing raw morse, use the period and hyphen keys, with a space between letters and a slash between words. Both iOS and Android also offer morse keyboard layouts in their accessibility settings.

What does the slash (/) mean in Morse code?

The slash is the written stand-in for a word gap. In sound, words are separated by seven units of silence, but silence doesn’t show on paper, so writers mark it with / instead. When you paste morse into this translator, include the slashes so it knows where words break.

Can this translate Morse code back to text?

Yes, it’s fully bidirectional. Paste or type dots and dashes into the morse box and the plain text appears in the other box. Use spaces between letters and slashes between words so the decoder knows where the boundaries are. Unrecognized groups are flagged rather than guessed.