I’m guessing Apple will release iOS 26 in the next few weeks, and that major update will bring a new Liquid Glass design, call screening and more to your to the iPhone. But when Apple released iOS 18.1 in 2024, that update introduced call recording to your iPhone’s Phone app.
This feature can be helpful for people who have iPhones for their businesses or work or to keep track of instructions given over the phone. Once a call is recorded, it’s saved to your phone, and you can listen back to the call or read the transcript of it.
Here’s how to record a call and read the call’s transcript. Before you record calls, you should check your local laws on call recording. According to the law resource website Justia, many states are one-party consent states, which means only one person has to consent to a phone call being recorded. In some states, like California, it’s illegal to record a call without the consent of both parties.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.
What to know about phone call recording on your iPhone
Call that number for a holiday surprise.
Recording a call on your iPhone is pretty straightforward. Once you’re on a call with someone, tap the symbol in the left corner of your screen that looks like a soundbar and the recording button.
After tapping that button, you and the person on the other line will hear a three-second countdown and an automated voice say, “This call will be recorded,” followed by a tone.
You can stop recording the call at any time by hanging up or by tapping the Stop button on your screen. If you tap the Stop button, the same automated voice from before will then say, “This call is no longer being recorded.” You can then continue your conversation without it being recorded.
Where to find phone call recordings on iPhone
After recording a call, you can find the recording in your Notes app. It will be saved as “Call Recording” in the app, but you can rename it whatever you want, like you would any other note in the app.
Tap Play to listen to the call, or tap the transcript below to read the call recording.
To listen to the recording, tap the note and tap the Play button. You can also fast forward or rewind the recording like you would any other song or podcast.
If you want to read the transcript, tap Transcript below the Play button and the transcript will take up your whole screen. You can tap the three dots (…) in the top right corner and then tap Add Transcript to Note to transfer a copy of the transcript to the recording’s note. This lets you scroll through the transcript and listen back to the recording at the same time.
You can read the transcript in the Transcript page while listening to the recording, but it can be buggy and sometimes the transcript disappears before reappearing a second later.
Once the transcript is in the note, you can scroll through the transcript to find what you’re looking for. To save yourself time, you can also tap the three dots (…) in the top right corner and tap Find in Note to search for a specific word within the transcript.
For more iOS news, here are my first impressions of the beta version of iOS 26, how to enable call screening in the beta and all the new features Apple said it will bring to your device later this year. You can get an early view of the upcoming iPhone features with our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
Watch this: iPhone 17 Event Clues: Everything to Expect on Sept. 9
