How to record your voice
- Press Record and allow the microphone when the browser asks. The timer starts and the waveform shows your voice as you speak.
- Watch the level bar: speech should reach about two-thirds of the way. If it says Too loud: clipping, move back from the microphone or speak more softly, because clipped peaks sound harsh and can't be repaired afterwards.
- Use Pause to skip a part and Resume to carry on in the same file. Press Stop when you're done.
- Play it back, drag the handles on the waveform (or type the times) to cut silence from the start and end, choose a format and press Download.
Which format to download
Original is exactly what your browser recorded: Opus audio in a WebM file in Chrome, Edge and Firefox, or AAC in an M4A file in Safari. It's the smallest, about 1 MB a minute, and cutting it doesn't re-encode the sound. MP3 plays on every phone, car stereo and old media player, and is what most upload forms ask for; 128 kbps is plenty for speech. WAV is uncompressed 16-bit audio, about 5.8 MB a minute in mono at 48 kHz, which audio editors such as Audacity open without converting. WAV and MP3 are made from the recording on your device; the MP3 encoder is LAME, compiled to WebAssembly.
Noise suppression, echo cancellation and automatic volume
The browser can clean up the microphone signal before it's recorded. Noise suppression removes steady background sound such as a fan, hum or hiss, and is on by default because it helps speech in ordinary rooms. Echo cancellation removes sound from your own speakers, which you only need if something is playing while you record. Automatic volume evens out loud and quiet passages. All three are made for calls: for singing, an instrument or a quiet room with a good microphone, turn them off under Microphone settings for the most natural sound. Some devices ignore one or more of them.
Private, with no sign-up and no time limit
The recording is made by your browser and saved second by second in its own storage on your device, so nothing is uploaded and there's no account, watermark or time limit. Long recordings don't fill your memory, and if the browser crashes or the tab is closed, the next visit offers what was saved. One recording is kept at a time: starting a new one, or pressing Delete recording, removes it. Our analytics only count things like the recording's length bucket and the format, never the sound.
Recording on a phone
The recorder works in Safari on iPhone and iPad and in Chrome on Android. Keep the page open while you record: switching to another app or locking the screen can pause or end the recording, so the page keeps the screen awake while it records. A phone's built-in microphone is close to your mouth when you hold it like a call, which gives a clear voice with little room echo.
Troubleshooting
- No level on the bar: the wrong microphone may be selected. Pick another under Microphone settings, or check it with the mic test, which explains every permission and device problem.
- The voice sounds robotic or watery: turn off noise suppression; it can treat a quiet voice as noise.
- Need a different sound? Try the voice changer. To record your screen with your voice, use the screen recorder; to get the sound out of a video file, extract audio.