Recording phone calls on iPhone with VoiceOver

Recording phone calls

The Phone app allows you to record phone calls between two people, both incoming and outgoing. This feature is available in a long list of countries including the UK. It is also possible to receive a transcript of the call, but this feature is available in a much shorter list of languages. In October 2024 it is available in Cantonese (Hong Kong), English (Australia), English (United States), Korean (South Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland), Spanish (United States) and Spanish (Mexico). 

You should always request agreement for a call to be recorded before starting a recording. When recording begins and ends, both participants in the conversation will hear an automated announcement. As you'd expect from Apple, it isn't possible to make a clandestine recording.

The process could have been made a little easier but it's straightforward enough. I certainly recommend practicing on a friend before you need to use it for real.

There is a setting to enable phone call recording. I think this is turned on by default but you may need to turn it on at Settings / Apps / Phone./ Call Recording.

The buttons to start and stop call recording don't appear on the first screen shown during a phone call, the screen with a numeric keypad. You need to hide the keypad to reveal the buttons you will need. If you are using AirPods, bluetooth hearing aids or other headphones you should be able to hear VoiceOver clearly while using this feature. I think you'll also be OK if you take the call hands free over the loudspeaker. If you prefer to take the call with the phone held to your ear, you will probably need to perform the VoiceOver gestures with the phone held close to your ear since VoiceOver will speak over the earpiece loudspeaker at the top of the phone and won't be easy to hear from a distance.

Here's the recording process in full.

Start a call or answer a call as usual.

Agree it's OK to record.

Explore near bottom right of the screen for the "hide keypad" button and double tap. (You may also be able to locate this button by swiping right.)

Next explore near top left of the screen for the "call recording" button and double tap. (You may be able to locate this button by swiping left about 7 times.)

Wait for the announcement and ping and then begin your conversation to be recorded.

If you want to record the entire conversation, just end the call as usual.

If you want to stop recording before you end the call you need to locate the "stop recording" button. VoiceOver is probably focused on that button already and you may have heard it spoken when you first started the recording. If you aren't sure, try swiping left then right to check. When you are sure you have the "stop recording" button double tap.

Finally, end the call as usual.

Three images in which the "Hide Keypad" and start and stop recording buttons are highlighted with a red oval for readers who can see well enough to locate the buttons visually. Non VoiceOver users should simply tap the buttons.

Listening to the recording and transcript

The recording and transcript are placed in a note to be found in the Notes app. You will probably also receive notifications enabling you to open that note in the Notes app.

Here's how to listen to the recording.:

Open the note.

You'll probably hear the date and time of the recording at the top of the note. Swipe right once to hear the title of the note which will be something like "Call with Jackie Negus". VoiceOver will probably speak more but eventually let you know that this is a text field. If you wish, you can double tap and edit this text to give the note a more meaningful title but that's optional.

Swipe right again and you'll hear the details again followed by "audio atachment". Double tap.

This reveals a player screen for the recording. Swipe right a few times to reach the play button and double tap. There are go backward and forward 15 seconds buttons to the left and right of the Play button. Double tap the play button to hear the recording.

The play button becomes a pause button but VoiceOver focus may not stay on it. If you want to pause the recording, one way to locate the pause button is first to explore at bottom right for the "Done" buttonand then swipe left twice.

When you've finished listening to the recording, locate the Done button at bottom left and double tap.

I'll add something about transcriptions later when I've set my phones language and Siri language back again to US English. My phone is currently set to UK English and transcriptions aren't available yet for this version of English. (I had to use US English to test Apple Intelligence and was keen to convert back to UK English when the test version of iOS 18.2 supported UK English but iOS 18.2 doesn't provide transcripts for UK English phone calls yet.)

The first image shows the opened note containing the screen recording. A button labelled Play is highlighted. Sighted users can use this button directly to play and pause the recording. It's a little different for VoiceOver users who double tap on the audio attachment and are taken to the second screen, an audio player screen which has a Done button at bottom right from which buttons including jump forward, play and jump back can be reached by swiping left. 

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