How to record phone calls and conversations on iPhone
Key things
- iOS 18.1 brings native call recording functionality to iPhones, making the process seamless and legally secure.
- You can still use external recording devices and rely on third-party apps to record your phone calls, but keep in mind that you need to get consent.
- Depending on your carrier, you can even try recording calls using a voicemail that you can save to the Files app.
If you’ve tried to record phone calls on your iPhone, you’ll be glad to know that iOS 18.1 is much easier and more legally secure. However, there are other ways to do this that can be useful in some cases. You can learn all about them below.
Secretly recording a call on your iPhone could lead to legal consequences. If you’re going to record a phone call, you’ll need consent from the person on the other end to avoid getting into trouble.
How to record calls on iPhone without apps
With the release of iOS 18.1, Apple added native call recording to the Phone app, making recording calls easier than ever.
When you call, you will see a sound wave icon in the upper left corner of the screen. Tap it to start a three-second countdown, after which Siri will announce that the call is being recorded.
Once the recording starts, you will see the recording in progress in the center of the screen. You can either press red BUS STOP you can stop recording at any time or simply hang up.
The recording will automatically move to the built-in Notes app in the “Call Recordings” folder. Click on a note in the folder to listen to the recording or view the transcript that is automatically generated.
How to record iPhone calls externally
This method requires a separate recording device (like another phone) or connecting one of the best podcasting microphones to your computer for high-quality recordings. Assuming you’re in a quiet environment and can use your iPhone’s speakerphone, it’s easy to remove:
- Call your contact and tap Speaker icon. Notify the other party that you will be recording the phone call on your iPhone.
- Once approved, start recording using your external recording device.
- Place your iPhone near the recording device’s microphone. If you also want to record your own audio, stay physically close to the recording device.
- End call and save the recording.
If you use another iPhone or iPad to record calls, you can use the Apple Voice Memos app. However, if you are using a computer, we recommend using a free audio editing and recording tool such as Audacity. You can check out our guide to using Audacity if you’ve never used it before.
Record phone calls on iPhone using a third-party app
If the old-fashioned way of recording a phone call isn’t working for you, it’s probably time to turn to a third-party app like TapeACall. As the name suggests, the app allows you to easily record calls from your phone.
TapeACall is not free, but you can take advantage of a one-week free trial by subscribing to the app. If you are not interested in continuing to use the application, please remember to cancel your subscription before the end of the trial period.
When you open the app for the first time, it guides you through several steps, including setting up the number that TapeACall uses to record your calls. Once you’ve gone through the setup, you should be ready to start recording calls.
Open the app and press red Record button at the bottom to start recording the call. From there you will have the choice of whether you want to record an outgoing or an incoming call. Don’t forget to use Merge calls button to record incoming calls.
Once you’ve recorded the call, you can find the audio clip in Recordings TapeACall section.
Download:TapeACall (subscription required, free trial available)
Record iPhone calls using voicemail
If you’ve set up voicemail on your iPhone, you can use a great trick to record phone calls to voicemail, although this last method depends a lot on your carrier.
First, check if your carrier allows you to download voicemail messages. Run it Phone app on your iPhone and tap Voicemail icon in the lower right corner. If you see a list of voicemails, that’s great! You can download them and keep them on your device for future playback purposes, which is part of how this little trick works.
If you only see a Call to voicemail option, you’re out of luck because you won’t be able to download voicemails easily. However, you can save them to your operator’s voicemail. This means you will have to keep calling voicemail every time you want to play the message.
To download these messages externally, you can use the speakerphone method described above to record the phone call on your iPhone. Depending on your carrier, you can try a similar recording method using call merge and voicemail:
- Call your contact and get their consent to record the call. Ask them to hold.
- On iPhone, tap Add call start a three-way conversation.
- Call your own phone number. You should get your own voicemail.
- Wait for the voicemail greeting to complete. Tap Merge calls to start the conference.
- End the call when you’re done. Your conversation should be recorded as a message, which you can retrieve from the Voicemail tab in the Phone app.
- Select the voice message you want to save from your inbox, tap Share button and select Save to files to save the recording to the desired location.
Now you have an overview of how to record a phone call on your iPhone. But keep in mind that not all carriers work the same way and won’t give you some of the options we’ve mentioned here. So try a few recording methods until you find the one that’s right for you.
The two most reliable ways to record a phone call on your iPhone include using iOS’s native call recording feature and the speakerphone method. I really don’t recommend paying a third party app to record calls. In any case, you should always get the other party’s consent to legally record your phone calls.