Why you can no longer save calls on Android

You remember when The call recording applications worked perfectly? It has since rained, because the journey through the desert of these applications began with this 9 -foot Android and has essentially worsened since then.

The recording of calls survives, but halfway and with many conditions. What happened In Android to get to this point?

Can calls be recorded or cannot be recorded?

For the question of whether you can record calls on Android, we must answer with the same thing as so many other questions in the operating system: it depends. Applications to save calls They work … more or less, sometimes. In most cases, without root, applications record the sound using the phone's microphone, so the quality leaves enough to be desired. They work, they work, but not very well.

The best thing that can happen to you is that Your mobile has provided the call recording standardSomething that happens for example in Google Pixel, Samsung, Huawei and other brands, because recording is saved with the internal audio of the phone, that is to say with perfect quality. The problem is that manufacturers only activate calls for calls in some countries. Neither Google nor Samsung have active in Europe, although it is legal even without consent, as long as you do not distribute them.

So, is it possible to record Android calls? Yes and no. If you are lucky and you have a mobile phone that has recorded calls and living in a country where it is active, then. Otherwise, you can use applications to continue saving calls, but They work regularly.

What happened to recording calls

How have we reached this, if more than a decade, you could record calls without problems with Android Lollipop? It was not something in the morning, but He was brewing the version after the version.

The problem is that Android has never had a reliable and sure way to allow third part applications to record calls, so that these applications initially used bypass solutions, or triquuelas to obtain it. Of Android Marshmallow, these applications should Use an unofficial API to capture audio. It was still a hack And something dangerous in bad hands, so Google has limited its use of Android Pie.

Without civil servants or not, to be able to capture audio of the phone, since then, recording requests have had to be satisfied Save the incoming audio with the microphoneWith worse quality and rely on accessibility services to operate more or less reliable.

The problem is that Use accessibility services to record calls It was another hack And finally Google published a sentence: accessibility services are intended for accessibility and not to record calls. As a result, the recording applications that used them had to leave Google Play.

On Google Play, there is only a handful of call recording applications, such as the legendary Affic They don't work in the latest android versions. When opening the ACR downloaded from Google Play on a recent mobile, we get the following opinion:

The applications to record calls cannot capture audio today in two ways: with accessibility permits (and, therefore, they cannot be in Google Play) and with Root (in authorized theory on Google Play ). The two cases are not too optimal for the general public, so the developers recently opted for the environment: Replace the telephone application with another to record calls. Thus, the creator of ACR Record launched ACR Phone.

ACR Phone continues to need an accessibility authorization to capture audio, but does not include it in its application on Google Play, as this would go against Google standards. Instead, its developer has created A separate application that distributes outside of Google PlayACR Phone Helper, which uses accessibility permits to provide an ACR phone call. If you have the root, better still, fold the functions as a magisk module to record a real internal audio and not through the microphone.

In summary, Google blocked all the methods to save callsBoth of the operating system itself (with the restriction of the API without documentary from Android 10) and Google Play policies, to the point that the only way to continue to record calls on Android, if Your mobile does not bring them standard, it's pretty bad: you need to install applications from the outside of Google Play and the quality will not be good unless you have root.

So if you want to save calls on your Android mobile The best thing that can happen to you is that I come as standardOtherwise, you will need root to have a complete quality recording or downloaded applications from external Google Play that use accessibility services (with the safety risks they involve) and with improved quality.

We are in 2025, three years have passed since the change and for the moment It seems that the thing will remainBecause closing all ways for third part applications to record calls, Google does not provide a new civilized form (with an authorization, for example) to do so in the latest versions of Android. Have you missed all the variants? Here is a summary:

• If your mobile provides standard recording: You can save full -quality calls if you have active in your country.
• If your mobile does not bring the registration of the series: You can use third -part -down applications downloaded outside of Google Play that use accessibility permits to save calls using the microphone, with good quality.
• If you have the root: You can force the recording of the call for full quality, whether it has become standard or not.

And in the future? We have seen that Apple with iOS 18 will leave the calls. In the case of Android, we have manufacturers such as Samsung who also await the expansion of artificial intelligence to offer transcriptions. These AI changes could finally bring news regarding recording.

This article was initially published in Xataka Android in February 2024. It was revised and updated again.

In Xataka Android | The recording of calls is not the only thing you can do, it is also possible to go to the text: two tips to transcribe them