Make sense of your epic screen recording by adding a voiceover

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Combine microphone audio with your screen recordings to add voiceover.
Combine microphone audio with your screen recordings to add voiceover.
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

iOS 11 added screen recording to the iPhone and iPad, allowing you to make videos of your device’s screen. You can use it to copy videos you can’t just download, record game play, show someone how to use an app and more. Personally, I use it most often to record bugs and crashes in the apps I use so I can submit bug reports.

But did you know that you can record a voiceover, too? Here’s how.

How to record voiceover video on iPhone

Record the screen on iPhone.

The only way to record your screen is to enable it in Control Center. Open Control Center by swiping down from the top right corner of your screen (iPhone X, XS, XR, 11, 12, 13) or the bottom edge of your screen (iPhone 6, 6s, 7, 8, SE).

If you see a circular Record button, just tap it to start recording. Stop recording by tapping the red button. All of the audio your phone plays — from videos you watch, music you hear — will be saved in the recording.

If you don’t see the Screen Recording button

Add, remove or rearrange buttons in Control Center.

To enable this feature, go to Settings > Control Center and add the Screen Recording button. From here, you can rearrange the buttons to your liking or add and remove other buttons.

Record a voiceover with your screen

If you want to include your own spoken dialogue in the screen recording — for example, recording a video call, or adding voiceover to instructions — it’s really easy. Instead of tapping the Record button, tap and hold it. You will see an option to turn on the microphone. Enable it to record yourself, too.

Add a voiceover track to your screen recording.

When you tap Record, your phone will combine your microphone with whatever is happening on screen. If you don’t have headphones connected while you’re recording, your phone will play audio out of the speakers quietly so that the noise doesn’t loop back into the microphone, but any sound will be at full volume in the final recording.

Another advanced use case for this feature is for recording multitrack audio. Record the first track in Voice Memos, then combine additional tracks by recording the screen as you play it back and singing or playing an instrument over it. There are definitely better apps to do this, but this functionality is built into the system.

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