The 5 best voice recorder apps for Android
Mobile voice recorders are must-have tools for personal and professional use. Also, they’re great alternatives to note-taking apps if typing and scribbling tires you or when you need to document information quickly. Whether you’re anAndroid tabletor phone user, you’ll find a built-in recorder on your device. You’ll get basic features, such as a history list, pause and play buttons, and settings for adjusting audio quality or blocking incoming calls. You may be able torecord phone callsif they’re on speaker, but we advise against it as it’s illegal without consent.
These features are enough to tape conversations, lectures, meetings, or your band practice. But if you want more out of the tool, download a third-party alternative. The Google Play Store is flooded with them, and we made this short list to help you narrow your choices to the best ones. If you’re ready to switch to an enhanced vocal recorder, here are our top five picks.
Otter is a powerful productivity tool that doubles as a voice recorder. It offers transcription for live recordings and imported audio or video, although they aren’t accurate since AI generates them. However, it cuts down the time to convert sound to text. Other features you’ll find interesting include notes, inline comments, text highlighting, and the ability to add images or videos to your recording. These tools bring your recordings to life and provide enough information for third parties to understand them.
it’s possible to also invite someone as a viewer or collaborator. Collaborators can edit the generated transcriptions, make notes, and export recordings. On the other hand, viewers can only see the work you’ve done on the file and export it if you permit them to.
More interesting is the app’s seamless integration with Microsoft, Slack, and Zoom. You can connect and import your favorite calendars, cloud storage options, and contacts. Most of Otter’s features are locked behind a subscription, but you have free access to five hours of transcribed recordings per month (with a 30-minute maximum transcription time per conversation). If you decide the subscription is worth it, you’ll get up to 20 hours of transcribed recordings (90 minutes maximum transcription time per conversation). A premium plan also unlocks PDF, DOCX, and SRT file exports, playback speeds from 0.5x to 3x, unlimited conversation history, and other perks.
Pricing:Free / Pro: $8.33 / Business: $20 / Enterprise (billed according to your organization).
Dolby On targets amateur and professional musicians, but anyone can use it. Its automatic enhancement and simple interface set it apart from other apps. The app doesn’t throw too much in your face, and you can understand it as you go. Your first interaction exposes you to a bare screen with options to start a recording, view your history list, or enter the settings menu. The recording screen has buttons for making a video, audio, or livestream to Twitch and other platforms. One drawback with video and audio recordings is that you can’t pause them. So, eliminate distractions or rehearse what you want to say before you begin.
When you make a recording, Dolby applies background noise reduction, dynamic EQ, stereo widening, and compression on your file. The idea is to make it sound as close to a studio booth session as possible. You can turn off this feature, but there’s a clear difference between your original recording and Dolby’s enhancements. You can add up to nine visual effects to audio files and trim videos to your preferred length. When you’re done, share your creation to other social media, video, or audio apps.
Pricing:Free/ No ads / No IAPs
3Easy Voice Recorder (Free & Pro apps)
The free version of Easy Voice Recorder gives you access to noise and echo reduction features. Also, mic presets allow the app to adapt to your environment when recording voice notes, meetings, lectures, or music. Sound quality is adjustable from low to high, and you can change the app’s theme from light to dark or use your device’s default theme.
Most recording apps erase your files permanently once you delete them, but not this one. EVR keeps them in itsRecently deletedfolder for 30 days for you to recover them. If you don’t, you lose them forever. If you have sensitive recordings you want to keep out of people’s reach, hide them. The app lets you choose a default destination for recordings in the settings menu. Afterward, you can conceal the folder so that media players and audio apps can’t scan and display its content.
EVR doesn’t offer much on the free version, but a Pro plan goes a long way in improving your experience. In a separate app, it unlocks the ability to trim your recording and turn it into a video using any image from your gallery. Also, you can back up your creations to cloud storage apps, use colored themes, and remove ads. The good news is that you’re not forced to make a commitment. If you feel the Pro plan is expensive, you can choose between colorful themes, cloud uploads, or ad removal and pay for them individually. For trimming audio and making videos, watch an ad to unlock those features.
Pricing:Free / Contains ads / IAPs from $1.49 to $3.99.
4Voice Recorder & Audio Editor
Voice Recorder by J Labs is a joy to use. The UI is laid out like a vintage cassette player, and interacting with the controls produces (optional) click noises. There are eight skins for the recorder’s deck and dozens for the cassette. When you save a recording, the cassette skin you selected appears beside it. Saving your recording creates the realistic effect of ejecting the cassette from the deck.
Features outside the aesthetics are limited to letting you change the recording quality (sampling rate), file type (MP3 or WAV), and destination. Don’t expect much from the premium plan, which offers unlimited skins, an ad-free interface, and nothing else. The app is worth a try if you want something visually fun and aren’t looking for advanced features.
Pricing:Free / Contains ads / IAPs from $0.99 to $14.99
5Smart Voice Recorder
Smart Recorder is another simple app that provides only what you need. The free app allows for unlimited recordings, with the option to automatically or manually skip those awkward silences in between. This feature is useful if you don’t want unnecessarily heavy files cluttering your device’s storage. More importantly, the app analyzes your storage space and estimates how many hours of recording you can make.
While recording, a real-time spectrum analyzer shows how much sound you’re producing. It helps you identify harsh sound sources and adjust your voice for a well-balanced experience. Additionally, the app records in the background, so you may complete other device tasks.
Pricing:Free, contains ads / Ad removal costs $1.25
Pick an app and start recording
Voice recording apps have become indispensable tools for capturing sound around us. Whether you’re interested in productivity, sound enhancement, or just quirky UI features, our options have you covered. AI transcription is a hit-and-miss with most apps, but one recorder that executes it accurately is Google Recorder. It isn’t on the list because only Pixel phones support it. If you own one, the app makes an excellent companion. It operates on the same automatic captioning system as Live Captions. So, you can record your voice anduse it to turn audio into textin real time without an internet connection.
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