Many of our older feature phones have built-in call recorders, which is very handy if you need to record something for work or just because you want to remember something important. While smartphones have made life simpler in most areas, this is one area where they have set back as none of the leading mobile operating systems include a built-in call recorder. One reason for this may be the ambiguity in the legal realm surrounding recording calls—some countries (or states within countries) have laws against recording calls without the consent of all parties to the conversation.
We’ll tell you how to record phone calls on your smartphone, but we strongly recommend you check if this is legal in your area before following these steps. Needless to say, if it’s against the law, don’t record. If you are recording a call, make sure you tell the other person that the call is being recorded.
Recording phone calls may be an invasion of privacy, but it has several positive use cases. It’s useful when conducting phone interviews, when you receive complex instructions that you can’t write down, or when you want to store an intimate moment, such as a parent’s first phone call with their child.
Unfortunately for iPhone users, there’s no direct way to record phone calls, but you can try apps like TapeACall, which work by creating a conference call between you, the person you’re talking to, and a third line used to record the call. Privacy concerns and hassles aside, the service is only available in a handful of countries because it involves another calling loop. Unfortunately, it’s not available in India, so we couldn’t use this service.
We also tried a lot of other apps on the iPhone, but none of them worked. If you know of any recording-capable iPhone apps worth checking out, please let us know in the comments.
Windows Phone 8 does not allow apps to use the phone’s microphone during calls, which effectively prevents call recording apps from doing their job. If you’re running an older Windows Phone 7, you might have better luck with the Call Recorder app.
However, for BlackBerry and Android, recording calls using an app is relatively simple. We tested these applications on a BlackBerry Q10 and a Google Nexus 5 respectively.
Here’s how to record calls on your smartphone:
Android
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Download and install automatic call recorder.
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Whenever you make or receive a call, the app automatically starts recording. You can turn this feature off by clicking Three dot icon in the upper right corner > Settings > Call recording > Off.
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You can choose the format of your recording. You can choose from AMR, 3GP and WAV. This can be accessed in the application via Settings > File Types.
In the app you will see two tabs – Inbox and saved. All recordings will appear in the Inbox tab. Old recordings are overwritten. Here’s how to save your recordings permanently:
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To save these recordings to your SD card, tap any recording, then tap save. These recordings are shown in saved tab.
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You can choose where these recordings are saved Settings > Recording path. When we connected the phone to the computer, the default folder did not show up, but changed the saved folder to download Folders solve this problem. You can also share files directly from the app via WhatsApp or any other app, just tap on Record and then tap share icon.
Auto Call Recorder lets you save 200 recordings for free, but if you want to save more recordings on your phone, you need to buy Auto Call Recorder Pro for around Rs. 450.
blackberry 10
- Download and install Call Recorder For BlackBerry 10 FREE and launch the application once. Now when you make or receive a call, it will automatically record it even if the app is not active in the background. There are some settings in the app where you can change the call history.
- Launch the app and swipe down from the top of the screen to display the menu. Click “Settings” in the upper right corner to change the app’s settings.
- In settings you can click Recording mode Change recording automatic (default) to manual. If you do this, a window will pop up when the call starts asking if you want to record the call. You can also set it to Contact informationand then select the contact for automatic recording from the phone book.
You will see a list of saved conversations. The app runs continuously in the background and you don’t need to do anything to start recording. To answer the call, click Conversation.
You can then specify the filename and click save Save the call, or click Play Listen to it. tap Cancel Return to list. Long press on the recording and click share icon Share via email or other apps.
We hope this helps you record calls on your smartphone. If you use any other apps or technologies, please let us know in the comments. For more tutorials, visit our how-to section.
