Use the Voice Memos app

Record voice memos on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. Then edit and share your recording.


Voice Memos uses the built-in microphone on your device to record. For a higher-quality stereo recording, use an external stereo microphone.

How to record a voice memo

  1. Open the Voice Memos app or ask Siri to open it.
  2. To record, tap or clickthe red circle record button. To stop, tapthe stop button. On your iPad or Mac1, tap or clickthe pause button.
  3. When you tapthe stop button, your memo is saved automatically with your current location as the title.2 On your iPad or Mac, click Done when you're finished recording.

All your memos are available on every device that's signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID. Just turn on Voice Memos in the iCloud settings of each device.

After you record a voice memo, you can edit it.

Edit a voice memo

After you record a voice memo, it's easy to replace a section, trim the recording, or delete part of it.

How to replace part of a voice memo

How to trim from the beginning or end of a memo

How to delete part of a memo

Share a voice memo

Want to share your voice memo with a friend or save it to a second location? Tap a memo in the list, tapthe icon with three blue dots, then tap Share. On your iPad or Mac, select a memo, then tap or click the share buttonthe share icon.

Choose a way to share, such as Messages or a social media app. Or save your memo to another location with an option like iCloud Drive or Mail.

How to delete a voice memo

  1. Tap or click to select the memo that you want to delete.
  2. Tap. On your Mac, press the Delete key or choose Edit > Delete. The memo is moved to the Recently Deleted folder.

Voice memos stay in the Recently Deleted folder for 30 days and then are deleted permanently. You can recover a voice memo if it's still in the Recently Deleted folder:

  1. In Voice Memos, tap or click Recently Deleted.
  2. Tap or click the memo that you want to recover.
  3. Tap or click Recover, then tap or click Recover Recording.

1. Voice Memos is a built-in app in macOS Mojave and later.

2. You can turn location-based naming on or off in Settings > Voice Memos. On your Mac, choose Voice Memos > Preferences.

Published Date: