Help & guides
Everything about recording on an iPhone: getting a clean take, editing it down, turning it into text, and finding it again six months later.
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How to record audio on your iPhone
Record your first take in three taps: pick a mode, press record, and save it with a name. Plus what to do when the microphone permission is missing.
Read guide →Recording modes explained: Standard, Meetings, Music and Custom
Each mode sets a format, a sample rate and whether noise processing is on. Here is exactly what the four modes change, and which one to pick for what.
Read guide →How to record a meeting on your iPhone
Set up an iPhone to record a meeting clearly: the right mode, where to put the phone, how to mark decisions as they happen, and how to get a transcript afterwards.
Read guide →How to record a lecture on your iPhone
Record a two-hour lecture without filling your phone: which mode to use, how to mark the parts you'll revise, and how to turn the recording into notes you can search.
Read guide →How to record music and raw sound on your iPhone
Record a song idea, a rehearsal or room tone in lossless WAV with every kind of processing off — and why that matters for anything you'll edit later.
Read guide →M4A or WAV? Choosing a format, sample rate and bitrate
What the format, sample rate, bitrate and channel settings actually change — in file size and in sound — so you can pick once and stop thinking about it.
Read guide →Mark important moments while you record
Drop a timestamp the moment something matters, add a note to it later, and jump straight back to it in the player instead of scrubbing through an hour of audio.
Read guide →Record in the background while you use other apps
Keep a recording running with the screen locked or another app open, control it from the Lock Screen, and know what actually interrupts a take.
Read guide →Recover a recording that was interrupted
If the battery died, the app was killed, or storage ran out mid-take, the recording is not lost. Here is how it comes back and what to check.
Read guide →The microphone isn't working: a flat line and silent recordings
A flat meter, a silent recording or a very quiet one — the causes in the order worth checking, from the permission switch to a blocked microphone port.
Read guide →How to trim an audio recording on your iPhone
Cut the dead air off the start and end of a recording with two handles, hear the result before you commit, and keep the original if you want it.
Read guide →Cut a section out of the middle of a recording
Remove an interruption, a phone ringing or a private aside from the middle of a take, and have the two halves join cleanly.
Read guide →How to merge audio files on your iPhone
Join several recordings into one file, in the order you choose — for a meeting recorded in parts, an interview across two sessions, or a set of voice notes.
Read guide →Compress an audio file to email or send it
Shrink a recording that's too big for email or a chat app, choose how much quality to trade, and keep the original at full size.
Read guide →Change your voice in a recording
Turn a recording into a robot, an alien, a monster, a squirrel and more — twelve voices, three of them free, applied to a copy so the original survives.
Read guide →Remove background noise from a recording
Clean hiss, hum and room rumble out of a recording after the fact — and the settings that stop the noise getting in while you record, which works far better.
Read guide →Add background music to a recording
Lay music or ambience under a voice recording, with fades and looping, for a podcast intro, an audio message or a narration.
Read guide →How to transcribe a voice recording to text on iPhone
Turn any recording into text you can read, edit, search and export — on device where your iPhone supports it, with 30 minutes free.
Read guide →See the text appear while you record
Transcribe as you record, so the words are on screen while they're being said — useful for an interview where you need to spot what to follow up on.
Read guide →Edit and export a transcript as a text file
Correct a transcript, then get it out of the app as a .txt file you can paste into notes, a document or an email.
Read guide →Get a more accurate transcript
Most transcription errors are decided before you press Transcribe. What to change about the recording, the language setting and the room.
Read guide →Play a recording faster or slower
Listen back at up to 3× without the chipmunk effect, or slow down to 0.5× to catch a word — and which speed suits which job.
Read guide →Make a quiet recording louder
Push playback to 200%, raise the input gain while recording, and use noise reduction when a recording came out too far away.
Read guide →Skip silence, loop a section, and jump between marks
Three playback settings that cut the time it takes to get through a recording: silence skipping, looping, and jumping straight to your marks.
Read guide →Organize your recordings with tags
Put recordings into folders with tags, filter the list to one project, and give new takes a naming pattern that stays useful a year later.
Read guide →Find a recording by searching its transcript
Search titles and transcripts together, so a word somebody said six months ago finds the recording it was said in.
Read guide →Import audio files into the app
Bring in M4A, MP3, WAV, AAC, CAF, AIFF and MP4 audio from the Files app, iCloud Drive or a computer — then edit and transcribe it like anything you recorded.
Read guide →Share a recording from your iPhone
Send a recording by message, email or AirDrop, save it to Files, or share several at once — and what to do when the file is too big.
Read guide →Restore a deleted recording
Deleted recordings wait 60 days in the trash before they go for good. How to get one back, and what to do when the 60 days have passed.
Read guide →Where recordings are stored, and how to back them up
Recordings live in the app's own folder on your iPhone, visible in the Files app and included in your backups. What that means for storage, transfers and privacy.
Read guide →Start recording from the Lock Screen and Control Center
Add a record button to Control Center, the Lock Screen or the Action button, and control a running take from the Dynamic Island.
Read guide →Add a recording widget to your Home Screen
Put a one-tap record button or your latest recordings on the Home Screen or Lock Screen, in every size iOS offers.
Read guide →Start a recording with Siri
Ask Siri to start a recording or open your recordings, and build the app into a Shortcuts automation — with nothing to set up first.
Read guide →Can you record a phone call on an iPhone?
No third-party app can record a call on iOS, and any that claims to is doing something else. What iOS 18.1's built-in call recording does, and what to use instead.
Read guide →Can you export a recording as MP3?
iOS decodes MP3 but cannot create one, so recordings are M4A or WAV. What that means in practice — which is usually nothing — and how to get an MP3 if you truly need one.
Read guide →What Voice Recorder PRO includes
Exactly what is free, what PRO adds, how the 3-day trial works, and how to restore a subscription on a new device.
Read guide →Change the app's language
Voice Recorder ships in English and Vietnamese. How to switch the interface, and why that is separate from the transcription language.
Read guide →Are my recordings private?
No account, no analytics, no uploads: what stays on your iPhone, the one case where audio leaves it, and what that means for sensitive recordings.
Read guide →