How to record iPhone phone calls on your Mac

BY Jason

Published 22 Dec 2014

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OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 have a new feature called Phone Relay, that lets you take iPhone calls on your Mac, as long as both devices are nearby and signed into the same iCloud account.

You can use this feature to record phones calls from your iPhone on your Mac, with the help of a tool like Call Recorder for FaceTime.

Note that while phone recording is legal in most places, you should check the laws of your own area. In the US, you’re allowed to record your calls, but you may have to inform the person on the opposite end too.

Here’s how you record a phone call on your iPhone using your Mac:

  • After downloading, unzip the file, and double click on the “Install Call Recorder for FaceTime Demo.app” file.

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  • Go through the install process by clicking Install, then accepting the license agreement, and entering your Mac password.

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  • Ensure that you’ve got Handoff/Phone Relay working between your Mac and your iPhone. To do this, sign into the same iCloud account on both devices, enable Bluetooth, and connect to the same Wi-Fi network. It goes without saying that both devices need to be in close proximity.
  • Now open the FaceTime app on your Mac. Call Recorder may ask you to configure settings for recording, including an option to automatically record calls.

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  • Once done configuring, place a phone call using the FaceTime app to any phone number in your contacts list. You can also receive an incoming call, and record that.

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  • If you haven’t enabled the Record Calls Automatically option, press the red Record button to start recording you call.

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  • To end the recording, press the Stop button in the Call Recorder app, or simply end the call.

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  • Your recording will be located in Documents > Saved Calls folder.

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There’s a similar app called Audio Hijack Pro from Rouge Amoeba that does the same thing, except that it’s more general purpose, and can record audio coming from any application like FaceTime, Skype, iTunes and so on. The app has a free trial, and the full version costs $32.