How-to
How to record a phone call on iPhone
Apple finally added call recording to the iPhone. Here is what it does, what it does not do, and how to end up with a recording you would actually want to hear in twenty years.
Updated August 2026 · Ana by Rememora
For most of the iPhone's life, Apple did not let you record a phone call at all. That changed with Call Recording, which Apple ships as part of the Phone app on recent iPhones and recent versions of iOS. It works, it is free, and for a lot of people it is enough. It is also deliberately limited — and if the reason you are recording is that the person on the other end will not be here forever, those limits matter.
Option 1 — Apple's built-in Call Recording
On a supported iPhone, recording lives inside the call screen itself. There is nothing to install.
- Start or answer the call as normal.
- Tap the record control at the top-left of the call screen. On some iOS versions it looks like a small waveform or record button.
- Both people hear an automated announcement that the call is being recorded. This cannot be switched off — it is Apple's consent mechanism, not a setting.
- Tap the control again to stop, or simply end the call.
- The recording is saved to the Notes app, in a Call Recordings folder, usually with an automatic transcript and summary.
Option 2 — speakerphone and a second device
The oldest workaround still works: put the call on speaker and record it with a voice recorder app on a second phone, a tablet or a laptop. Nothing to buy, works anywhere, no announcement beep — but you must still tell the other person you are recording (see the consent guide).
The trade-off is quality. You are recording a small phone speaker with another small phone microphone, in a room. Voices go boxy, room noise comes in, and the level drifts every time someone moves.
Option 3 — record the call at capture, not through the room
The reason recordings of loved ones so often disappoint is not the app you used — it is the codec. A normal mobile call throws away most of a voice before it ever reaches you. Wideband calling helps, but you are still listening to a compressed stream tuned for intelligibility on a bad line, not for keeping.
This is the gap Ana is built for. Ana runs the conversation as its own call and captures each side at the source — 48 kHz lossless audio and 1080p video — so what you keep is the voice, not a transmission of it. Consent is explicit on both ends, and the archive is private and stays yours.
Which one should you use?
| If you want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Keep a record of a practical call (a doctor, a builder, a bank) | Apple's built-in Call Recording — the transcript and summary in Notes is the useful part. |
| Record occasionally, on any phone, right now | Speakerphone plus a second device. Free, ugly, works. |
| Record a parent or grandparent to keep for decades | A capture-quality tool like Ana. Lossless audio and video, consent handled, private archive. |
Practical things that improve any recording
- Both people on Wi‑Fi, if you have the choice. Cellular drop-outs are unrecoverable.
- Wired earbuds beat AirPods for recording — no compression, no dropouts, no battery.
- Kill the room: close the window, turn off the extractor fan, take the dog out first.
- Say the date and who is speaking at the start. In ten years you will be grateful.
- Back it up somewhere that is not the phone. Phones get lost, dropped and wiped.
Before you record
Recording your own call is legal in most of the UK and US for personal use, but the rules change when you share the recording — and a handful of US states require everyone on the call to agree. That is worth five minutes of reading: is it legal to record a phone call?