How to Record Your Android or IPhone Screen
Screen recording features are great for helping family members with technical problems using their new smartphone, recording game content, collecting evidence when reporting bugs, and more. However, not all devices allow screen recording in the same way or easily.
IPhone and iPad owners can record their screens with iOS 11, but Android screen recording capabilities have been incompatible at best. Some manufacturers allow users to record their screens, but many don’t. While there are third party screen capture apps, some of them are highly questionable and could pose a security risk.
Fortunately, that will change when Android 11 launches this year. The new version of Android will include built-in screen recording capabilities for the first time, finally bringing the long-awaited feature to a device near you (at least if it supports Android 11 ). You can even try it out ahead of time by installing the latest Android 11 public beta .
How to record the screen of your Android, iOS, or iPadOS device
Now that screen recording has finally become a built-in Android feature, we decided it was time to put together a guide showing how to record screen on both Android and iOS / iPadOS.
Both options are easy enough to use, but you have to tinker a bit – this feature is cleverly stored in less convenient places to prevent accidental writes.
Please also note that some applications do not allow you to record audio at the same time, and some devices may interfere with screen sharing , mirroring, or broadcasting applications during screen recording.
Android
Since this is a feature of Android 11, you need to install the latest Android 11 beta or wait until the final version is released later this year. Some phones ( like Samsung Galaxy ) can record screen even without Android 11, so it’s possible that your device can already do that, although we’re only looking at the Android 11 feature in this article.
- Swipe down on the screen of your Android device to expand the notification menu, then swipe down again to access quick settings.
- Swipe right on the quick setting shortcuts to find the Screen Recorder button, then tap it.
- On the next screen, you can choose whether to record audio and / or include screen taps in the recording. If you want to enable audio, click Record Audio, then choose whether to record only your device’s audio, your microphone’s audio, or both.
- Click “Start” when you’re ready to record. A small red recording icon will appear in the upper right corner of the screen to indicate that screen recording is in progress.
- To stop recording, swipe down to open the notification panel, then tap the red “Tap to stop” banner.
Screen recordings are saved in your device’s existing media folder and can be found using the file manager or the Google Photos app under Library> Movies .
iOS and iPadOS
These instructions should work on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 11 or later.
- Open the Settings app and choose Control Center> Customize Controls.
- Tap the + sign next to Screen Recording .
- The next step will differ depending on the device / OS you are using. For iPhone X or later and iPad with iOS 12 / iPadOS 13 or later: Swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen. For devices with iOS 11 and earlier: Swipe up from the bottom of any screen.
- Press firmly on the gray “record” icon (it looks like a large dot in a circle) to activate the screen recording function.
- Tap the microphone icon to the “On” position if you want to include sound from the microphone in your recording.
- Click Start Recording and wait for the three second countdown to complete. Then recording will start.
To stop recording, tap the red bar at the top of the screen and tap Stop. You can also use the same gesture control you used in step 3 to open the Control Center and tap the Record icon again to end the video that way. Saved screen recordings can be found in the iOS Photos app.