Unable to Share/Export Call Recordings from Notes App

Hey friend - exactly! - I'm journalist, too. I hate obstructing an interview, for an example, by cutting every 20 mins and reintroducing the "this phone is being recorded" audio. It's enough of a break of trust to have the statement uttered in the beginning of the call. I understand the legal need for apple to include the prompt but if it repeats with new files, it completely breaks the flow of conversation into being much more self-aware in terms of what's said.

A simple SLICE button making a new file without an alert would be a good fix, perhaps, if devs are reading — could that be implemented? Or allowing post-editing to generate new files at a trim point, similar to how Quicktime allows, which could maybe be transcribed and separately exported.

Easy fix would be a twenty minute new file creation, which is common in most voice recorders.

(or just take this feedback as a widespread bug that a small percentage is reporting)

Thanks Apple - We appreciate this feature! Right now it's obviously needing to be more dependable at lengths exceeding twenty minutes.

I've upgraded to the latest iOS 18.3.1 on my iPohne 16 pro as well. I do counseling and just got rid of my landline (late to the party I know) and just recorded and saved the

session in NOTES and yes call recording was ON. I cannot for the life of me forward this call which was 1 hour long to my client. I cannot find anywhere to SHARE or even transcript it. I also get the little clock that never moves supposedly to save it. Any help appreciated.

Hi! I specifically made an account to reply to this. IT WORKS PERFECTLY.

Thank you so much for this contribution, Ninastr. For anyone else, please keep in mind you need a Macbook/laptop or Mac desktop to do this method.

Also, sometimes there are hundreds of files (as mentioned) but if you know you have a very large file you can sort by size to make it one of the first few at the top. Mine was a 1.5 hour call recording.

(Pro tip: once you open the folder, you can click the file and tap spacebar to preview it so that you can hear what the file is all about and move through them quick.)

Good luck everyone (until this is fixed in a future update). And thanks again so much for contributing this answer Ninastr. Worked like a charm.

Your crazy back door solution literally saved me from a full adult meltdown. I'm in a UX program and need to record my interviews. This was ridiculously, unnecessarily tedious to figure out. Don't get me started on video compression.

I'm shocked Apple doesn't have a quicker work around for this.

Yes, ragu0012, my iCloud does sync Notes. And my computer also syncs Notes from iCloud.

But that doesn't help get the Call Recording audio file onto my computer. That just allows Notes on the computer to see the reference to the Call Recording on the Note.

I'm asking about what @Ninastr said about getting the Note's Call Recording audio file from iPhone to computer, so that it can then be found in the computer's Library folder. How to do that?

Thanks, Ted

omklm,

Regarding your "Ultimate, Easy Solution" post earlier today:

You rephrased the things that the author of this thread/post already said does NOT work, and that people have commented here also saying doesn't work.

The whole point of this thread is to say that the steps that are supposed to work are not working (and then you went and just restated the things that are supposed to work, even though this post is about how they're not working all the time).

omklm wrote:

The Ultimate, Easy Solution:

1. Open notes app

2. Tap the specific notes / audio note

3. Click the share icon in the top right (upward arrow from box)

4. Share to "voice memos" app (you may have to click More to see it)

5. Once in voice memos, share (via three dots menu) from voice memos app to anywhere else.

Apple really needs to fix this issue!

It doesn’t matter how long or short the call recording is, the issue still persists.

I have a recording that’s under 30 seconds long, and the “Preparing box” to save the audio to my Files, is frozen!

You mean to tell me iMovie (for iPhone), can export “extra large; storage hungry” video projects smoothly, but Notes can’t export simple short audio files, smh?!

btw I’m on iOS 18.4.1

[Edited by Moderator]

This is absolutely brilliant! Thank you so much. This helped me not spend hours trying to download and save the recording in all these different ways that weren't working.

I'm going to add to this. Updating your #7 that will save time as well (I didn't read others' comments to see if they did this or not)

#7. Change the viewer to "list" and then click on "Date Modified" this will save you the hastle of poking around in random files.

I have iPhone 16 Pro and a PC not a MAC. While in a Zoom Call I selected record on the phone so I can get a transcript. This works for shorter calls, I was able to get some larger calls to save to the phone. I do not have the option to share to Voice Recorder. Again, no MAC so Airdrop is out, I really need to transcribe calls, cannot help that some calls are long... I cannot stop the call, start a new recording every 20 minutes, PLEASE HELP!! The recording ended up being over 2 hours... now I can only play it. I tried to play aloud for WORD Dictate, but that was a horrible output. The phone will not transcribe the call... APPLE SUPPORT PLEASE HELP

@ragu0012 you are a lifesaver! Didn't have to screenrecord which sounded very tedious.

I found mine under "media" just as you said. Thought it would take me forever to figure out which one was my recording, but I could see which one it was by the date.

Update: In iOS 26, this issue seems to have infected the Voice Memos app too ... For certain longer recordings in Voice Memos, I can see the length of the recording. I can see the waveform, but I can't press play. It fails to create a transcript and it crashes when I try to export the audio to anything else, much like the phone call recordings in the notes app.

I've tried all the usual things (exporting every conceivable way, duplicating the recording in Voice Memos, etc.) and nothing seems to work.

Very similar experiences as I work in TV. The first week the feature was available, i was able to transcribe and save two hour+long interviews but at some point it's like it just stopped working.

Thanks for the tip on keeping calls short! I'll try that.

as soon as this dialog window open you know you’re screwed.

[Edited by Moderator]

Can confirm that's my exact experience, too.