There are numerous reasons why you might want to record what’s happening on your phone. Maybe you’re having a problem with an app and you want to share what’s going wrong with a tech-savvy friend; or maybe you’re the tech-savvy friend, and you want to show someone else how to fix a bug.
Perhaps you’re starting up a YouTube channel of smartphone tutorials. Or it could be that you want to capture evidence of a new high score in a mobile game—not just a screenshot of it, but the actual act of you achieving it.
For these reasons and more, screen recordings are useful, and they’re not difficult to capture no matter what the make and model of your handset. You’ll find instructions below for the two most well-known Android phone brands, and the iPhone.
Record Your Screen on a Google Pixel
If your phone of choice is the Google Pixel, unlock your handset then swipe down from the top of the screen with two fingers to bring up the full Quick Settings selection. You should see a widget for Screen recorder—if you can’t see it, try swiping left or right. If you still can’t see it, tap the pen icon (lower right) to add it to the Quick Settings menu.
Next you’ll see a panel of toggle switches: These options let you choose whether or not the screen touches are visible in the recording, and whether you want the selfie camera feed to be visible as an overlay (handy if you’re narrating or reacting to what’s on screen). You can also opt to include audio from your phone’s apps or from the microphone.
The drop-down menu at the top lets you decide between recording the entire screen or just a single app. When you’re happy, tap Start. You’ll see a short countdown, then the recording begins. To end the recording, tap the red recording timer in the status bar at the top, then Stop. The video will be saved to Google Photos.
Record Your Screen on a Samsung Galaxy
On Samsung Galaxy phones, the process is similar but not quite identical to screen recording on a Pixel. With your phone unlocked, swipe down from the top of the display, then swipe down again on the central pane (with icons for features including Wi-Fi and the flashlight) to reveal the Screen recorder icon.
This brings up a settings panel. You can choose between Full screen and Partial screen for your recording, and there are three options for audio: None, Media (whatever your phone is playing), and Media and mic (whatever your phone is playing plus the microphone input). There’s also a toggle switch for showing taps and touches on screen.
When you’re good to go, tap Start recording. You get a short countdown, and then the recording begins—up in the corner of the screen you’ll see a widget overlay for adding annotations or a selfie camera overlay, and for pausing or stopping the recording. When you tap the stop button, the video is saved in Samsung Gallery and (if you’ve got it installed) Google Photos.
Record Your Screen on an iPhone
For iOS, the screen recorder is launched by swiping down from the top right corner of the display, then tapping the screen recorder button (it’s a circle with another circle outside it). If the icon has been removed from the Control Center somehow, tap the + (plus) button in the top left corner to add it back.
You can either tap the record button once to start the countdown and launch the recording, or press and hold the record button to choose a different app for the recording besides the default Photos option—so you can use this to broadcast your recording to Facebook or WhatsApp for example.
Pressing and holding on the record button also lets you choose whether or not to include the iPhone mic audio. (The iPhone’s native output audio is always included.) To stop the recording, tap the recording indicator at the top of the screen, then the red stop button. You’ll find your saved video stored in the Photos app.
Third-Party Screen Recording Apps
It’s worth noting that iOS restricts what third-party apps can do in terms of screen recordings, for security and privacy reasons. Most apps in this category in the Apple App Store simply tap into the iPhone’s own recording capabilities, though Record It! is worth a look if you want to add commentaries and selfie cam reactions—you just need to add these after the main recording. Clips over three minutes require the $6 Pro purchase.
On Android, there are fewer limits on what apps can do. AZ Recorder has been a popular choice for years, giving you one-tap recording options, a choice of video quality settings, and some basic editing options included as well. To remove the ads in the app and the watermarks on your exported videos, you can pay $4.49 a month for the Pro version.
Mobizen Screen Recorder is another of the leading screen recorders on Android, and comes with a similar set of features as AZ Recorder: A widget overlay for instantly starting recordings, editing tools, and a few options for video quality (both resolution and refresh rate). Again, payment is required to remove the ads and watermarks—that will set you back $3.35 a month.
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