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Yes. Recording continues while the app is in the background and while the screen is off, so a long lecture or meeting won't be cut short. To be safe on a long session, keep the phone plugged in and don't force-quit the app (swiping it away in the app switcher stops the recording). There's also a Keep screen awake option in Settings if you'd rather leave the display on while recording.

There's no time limit in the app — the only limit is the free space on your device. The recording panel shows how much space you have left, and roughly how much a recording will use at the quality you've chosen.

Open Settings ▸ Recording ▸ Quality and choose Low (8 kHz) for the smallest files (fine for voice memos and dictation), Medium (22 kHz) as a balance, or High (44.1 kHz) for the cleanest result — best when you plan to transcribe or share the audio. Recordings are saved as M4A (AAC). The setting applies to your next recording, not to ones you already made.

Voice Recorder needs microphone access. Check iOS Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Microphone and make sure Voice Recorder is switched on — you can also check Settings ▸ Voice Recorder directly. Then make sure nothing is covering the mic, and that another app (a call, or another recorder) isn't already using it.

Open a recording and tap Transcribe. Pick the language that was spoken, and the text appears with the audio. You can play it back with follow-along highlighting, tap any word to jump straight to that moment, and use find-in-transcript to step through every match. Transcripts are saved next to the recording, so reopening one is instant.

25+ languages, including English (US, UK, Australia, India), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Your device's own languages appear first in the picker. The exact list depends on what your iPhone and iOS version support, so a language your device doesn't recognise won't be offered.

On recent iPhones and iOS versions it runs entirely on your device — no connection needed, and nothing leaves your phone. The first time you use a language, your device may need to download its speech model, and the app shows the progress. Where on-device recognition isn't available for that language or device, the app falls back to Apple's speech recognition service, which does need an internet connection.

Accuracy depends on the recording. Record at High quality, get the microphone closer to the speaker, and reduce background noise where you can. Also double-check you picked the right language — transcribing English audio with a different language selected produces nonsense. You can tap Re-transcribe to run it again, or switch language from the menu and try once more.

Open the recording and choose Trim. Drag the handles across the waveform to set the start and end, preview it, then save. Trimming overwrites the recording with the shorter version, so if you want to keep the original, share or duplicate it first.

Yes. Swipe or long-press a recording to rename, share or delete it, and sort the list by date, name or size. Search matches file names and the words inside your transcripts, so you can find the take where something was said even if the file has a default name. If a recording still has its default name, the app can also suggest a title based on the first sentence it heard.

The quickest way is Share — AirDrop, Mail, Messages, or save to the Files app or your cloud drive. You can also connect your iPhone to a computer and copy the files out through Finder's Files tab (or iTunes on Windows), where Voice Recorder appears in the list of apps that share files.

Yes. From an open transcript, use the share menu and pick Share .srt to export subtitles with timecodes — ready to drop onto a video. You can also share the transcript as plain text or as a .txt file.

Unfortunately not. Recordings live on your device and aren't backed up to us — we never have a copy, so there's nothing for us to restore. Deleting is permanent, so it's worth sharing important recordings to your cloud drive as soon as you make them.

PRO unlocks transcription, trimming and sharing, and removes ads. It's available as an auto-renewing weekly or yearly subscription — with a free trial where one is offered — or as a one-time lifetime purchase. Current prices are shown in the app. See the full details in our Terms of Use.

Go to Settings ▸ Apple ID ▸ Subscriptions ▸ Voice Recorder ▸ Cancel. To avoid being charged when a free trial ends, cancel at least 24 hours before the trial period ends. The lifetime purchase is a one-time payment, so there's nothing to cancel.

Open the app and tap Restore on the PRO screen. Make sure you're signed in with the same Apple ID you originally used to buy. If your purchase still doesn't appear, email us and include the date of purchase.

The free version is supported by ads. Voice Recorder PRO removes them. On the first launch you may also see Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt — your choice there only affects whether ads are personalized, and you can change it any time in Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Tracking.