Unable to Share/Export Call Recordings from Notes App

I'm a journalist and this problem has been driving me crazy! The function worked like a dream for the first week or two, then it just stopped allowing me to export the recordings.

I just finished a 23-minute call and tried something that worked. I opened the recording in Notes and renamed it. When I did that, I could save it to Dropbox (or elsewhere). From Dropbox, I could open the file and export it for transcription.

Hope this helps.

So i am a college student and i have been taking interviews from my research and i took a 47 minute interview on call!!! ans im facing the same issue. but i found a way. the call recording is available for playing in the notes app, but just not getting exported. so what you can do is, open that note, start screen recording, and play the audio. you can switch the auto-lock of the screen off so the recording doesnt stop and keep your phone aside and that way youll have the audio as a video now. then you can use any online platform to extract the audio from the video and ta-da! you dont even need to keep the volume on, because when you screen record even if your phone's speaker volume is off, the audio on the screen automatically gets recorded. so you wont get disturbed, you can just do your daily work as usual and keep the recording aside. i needed to put the audio for transcription, which is why i needed the audio to get exported. i hope this helps!

If you have a mac computer you can get them out of your phone with Ninastr's advice:

This happened to me and after many hours of trying everything to get the audio off my phone a friend finally found a workaround.

1. Get the note onto your Macbook by syncing notes from iPhone to computer.
2. Go out to your main user folder, the one that contains Documents, Desktop, etc. You can find this by clicking the desktop and hitting command-shift-h
3. Hit Command shift period which should reveal hidden folders.
4. Go to the Library folder
5. Go to Group Containers then group.com.apple.notes
6. Under "accounts" and then "media" there are a million folders with different files saved to notes.
7. It should be in there somewhere — you may have to poke around for awhile if you have many folders.

Hope this works for you guys too!

Possible solution to your problems:

1. Try Duplicating the Note

• Open the note with the recording, tap Share, then select Duplicate.
• Try exporting from the duplicate instead.

2. Save via Voice Memos Instead

• Play the recording in Notes while using another device (or Mac) to record it in Voice Memos.
• You can then try exporting it from Voice Memos instead.

3. Use iCloud Notes on a Computer

• Log into iCloud.com on a Mac or PC.
• Try downloading the recording from there.

4. Check Storage & Restart Again

• Go to Settings → General → iPhone Storage to ensure you have enough space.
• Restart your iPhone again and try exporting immediately after rebooting.

5. Wait for iOS 18.2 (or Try Beta Software)

• Since you’re updating to iOS 18.2, this could fix the issue if it's a known bug.
• If urgent, consider installing the latest iOS beta (if you’re comfortable with pre-release software).

I tried the workarounds mentioned here and nothing worked for me. However, someone on a Reddit thread recommended taking the note in your phone, clicking on the option to share, but instead of selecting "collaborate" select "send a copy" and that should enable you to export it places. That seemed to work for me. I was able to airdrop the note to my macbook, locate the file in finder, and then find a software online to convert from .mov to .mp3.

It was tedious but man I'm just glad to have figured out something.

I just experienced a similar issue. I recorded a message from an automated phone line last night. Right after I was done recording, the audio was able to be played from its note in the Notes app (there WAS a play/pause button on the right) and there was a transcript generated and shown in the same box.

When I checked it at 8:30 am this morning, the play/pause button was gone and instead just showing that generic waveform icon that does not react to any touch/press, AND the transcript was gone.

I opened the Notes app on my Mac and the play/pause button was showing there, so I could listen to the audio - but still no transcript.

A similar solution to ninastr’s worked for me to save the audio file that didn’t require hunting through the Group Containers folder, so I thought I’d mention it in case it helps anyone else:

1. Open the note with the audio on Notes on your Mac

2. Click on the box with the audio recording and drag it to the desktop (you should get the green dot with the plus symbol in it)

3. Let go and you should get an m4a audio file

You can also right-click (or control-click) on the box with the audio in the note and select “Open Attachment” from the menu and it will open in your default audio program.

Had to transcribe it myself though!

Pretty annoying - hope Apple can fix this some day…

[Edited by Moderator]

Hi - Sorry you experienced this same problem! - So my solution has been tedious: I have a lightning to headphone adapter and play the audio back from that into a voice recorder. The voice recorder has a 3.5mm line input which is the same cable as the lightning headphone adapter (a 3.5mm TRS cable) — and then I have to play the entire **** phone call recording back in real time. Very tedious but then I have a file.

Alternately, if you do counseling you might have a zoom account? You can initiate a zoom call with yourself and record the zoom call. Play the phone recording back (again in real time) and zoom will create a video. If you initiate transcript in zoom you will also get a transcript. This is exceptionally tedious but if you then save the zoom recording and export the zoom transcript you'll get something very close to what Apple intends this to be when it works. (Basically, any option will require you playing the audio back in real time to the recorder of your choice)

Sorry this isn't more helpful except to say it's my current issue, too, and I'm just now trying to keep all calls at 20 mins or less. If you're working with a client you would need stop each recording manually and start a new one every 20 minutes.

I appreciate everyone who is posting a similar issue just to help prioritizing a fix.

This happened to me and after many hours of trying everything to get the audio off my phone a friend finally found a workaround.

1. Get the note onto your Macbook by syncing notes from iPhone to computer.
2. Go out to your main user folder, the one that contains Documents, Desktop, etc. You can find this by clicking the desktop and hitting command-shift-h
3. Hit Command shift period which should reveal hidden folders.
4. Go to the Library folder
5. Go to Group Containers then group.com.apple.notes
6. Under "accounts" and then "media" there are a million folders with different files saved to notes.
7. It should be in there somewhere — you may have to poke around for awhile if you have many folders.

Hope this works for you guys too!

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.

You are very welcome in advance,

A fellow researcher

Shorter calls work as expected - I can save to files, save to Dropbox, download from a browser signed in to iCloud, etc. My test hour long call will play back fine from Notes, but there is no way to transfer it anywhere. I work in radio and had a reporter with an hour long interview on their phone. The only way to get the audio off was to literally play it in real time over a mini plug to the line in of a computer and then record the audio as it played into my DAW.

Please fix this Apple!

I got this to work for me. Here's some more precise clarification for how I did it, in case anyone can use this.

1. On my iPhone, in Notes app, I moved the Call Recording Note I wanted the audio of from "iCloud" to "On My iPhone".
2. I plugged my iPhone into Mac's USB port
3. I followed ninastr's instructions #2-5 (on March 3 of this thread/chat)
4. Once in that group.com/apple.notes, there was an "accounts" AND a "media" folder. (not exactly "'accounts' and then 'media'", that ninastr mentioned).
5. There was nothing in my "media" folder.
6. In my "accounts" folder was a "DCD6FF10-1D79-4036-AEC4-6ED516544CFA" folder. Inside that folder was a "media" folder, and inside of that was 23 folders. (not exactly "'accounts' and then 'media'", that ninastr mentioned)
7. I sorted the folders in Finder, by Date Modified, saw the most recently modified folder was modified today, looked inside, and there was my desired audio recording! (moments_03_17_18_34_06-audio.MOV)
8. I copied that file (right-click > Copy), then pasted it in a more convenient folder.

Done - Thanks ninastr!

FURTHERMORE (to any Apple techs/staff reading this):

If you made Notes an available app to access when iPhone is plugged into Mac, in Finder > iPhone > Files, then we could've more easily extracted the Call Recording, since your current iOS isn't functioning correctly.

I've tried all those steps, and they didn't work on my iPhone 13Pro running iOS 18.3.2.

These were all tried with Apple tech on the phone with me, while screen sharing the phone with me.

1. Duplicate does not appear, as the Share option just displays the "Preparing" with timer icon graphic.
2. The Share to Voice Memos option worked ONCE on a 15 second Call Recording, but wouldn't work again on the recording. And it never worked on repeated tries on another 15 second Call Recording, and never on a 1.5 hour Call Recording.
3. iCloud Notes on Computer shows the Note, with the Call Recording mpeg.4 file, but gives no option to Save, Share, Download, Export or even Play the audio.
4. Several Apple tech support reps have told me that the almost 300GB of empty space on my phone is enough. Restarting the phone did not help
5. I'm on iOS 18.3.2, and it still doesn't work.

I've noticed that, eventually, the calls will process. The "Preparing..." screen of death eventually goes away so you can share the audio, and a transcript eventually shows up. It seems to be correlated with the recording length: The longer the phone call recording, the longer it takes to process.

I've been able to successfully access hour-long conversations after about 24-48 hours. Sometimes the transcript comes first, sometimes the share feature, sometimes both at the same time.

Makes me wonder if there's just a backlog on Apple's side to processes these files and they've opted to prioritize shorter files/calls ... (Could also explain why no one seemed to have this problem the first few weeks after the feature was released, when it had relatively few users.) It also seems like continuing to load the "Preparing..." screen may move the process along after (as slow as it still is).

Just my observation! Please feel free to contest/point out counter examples if this doesn't seem true for you.

on the attachments page from the front of the notes app, I can see my phone recordings listed. Those top two are over one hour and when I hold on it says “unsupported file format”

two photos attached to show

[Edited by Moderator]

I think they aren’t asking anyone to reset their phone because they know it won’t help. This happens to everyone. I do IT support for a large number of journalists and this happens to all of them (including me on a brand new iPhone 16). I can pretty much guarantee that resetting your phone would result in nothing but self torture. C’mon, Apple -fix this!