Use This Gesture to Take a Video From Your IPhone Without Stopping the Music

We have already told you about several ways that you can shoot videos, even while playing music from your phone . For this reason, the Mideo app is a mainstay on my home screen. If I’m recording a strength workout in my garage, I use the app to still listen to Hit it Hard by Peaches while doing heavy squats. (It helps, okay?)

But there’s an even easier way to shoot video on your iPhone without stopping your music (or whatever you’re listening to). Usually, when you hit “video” in the camera app, your audio will stop – even before you hit “Record”. But in the “photo” mode, the sound continues to play, and you can take photos without stopping it.

The trick is that you can shoot video in photo mode if you know the right gesture to do so. And your music will keep playing all the time. Here’s how:

1. While playing music or other sound, open the camera app and make sure you are in photo mode. You can use both front and rear camera.
2. Point the camera at the squat rack (or whatever you want to video) as you normally would. Tip: use a tripod .
3. Place your finger on the shutter button and drag it to the right, towards the round arrow button.
4. The area where the shutter button used to be will now look like a red square record button, as if you were shooting a video. Boom: You’re already recording. Click this button again to stop the video.

This feature is part of QuickTake and was introduced in iOS 13 to work with iPhone XS, XR and newer models. These models were introduced in 2018, so it’s safe to assume that every modern iPhone has this feature. (It works fine on my iPhone 12 Mini and Lifehacker Associate Editor Joel Cunningham’s iPhone 14.)

There is one important difference between videos shot this way and videos shot with normal settings: QuickTake always records in 1080p HD at 30 fps, while the resolution and frame rate for normal video mode can be adjusted in the settings. My video is set to 60 fps, which gives me smoother videos in case I want to slowly watch the video of the failed dash to see exactly why I missed the climb. QuickTake also uses the aspect ratio you set for photos, which you can change in the camera app itself.

If you’re fine with the default settings, QuickTake lives up to its name and lets you record video quickly and easily without the need for an additional music playback app.