An always-on voice recorder that only keeps what you save.
Most voice recorder apps start when you press record, which is always a few seconds too late. Life Recorder is the other kind: it listens in the background all day, holds the last hour in a self-erasing buffer, and turns the last minutes into a recording when you tap save - after the moment, not before it.
Life Recorder is a free Android app that keeps a rolling one-hour audio buffer on the phone; one tap saves the last minutes after the moment happened. Audio never leaves the device.
Always on, without recording your whole life
A recorder that runs all day sounds like a recorder that stores all day. This one doesn't. Audio is compressed as it arrives and written into a buffer that holds exactly 60 minutes; every second, the oldest second falls out for good. Tap save and the last 5, 10 or up to 60 minutes become a normal audio file. Everything else was never stored.
Runs in the background, screen off, in your pocket
Life Recorder runs as an Android background service with a persistent notification, so it keeps listening while you use other apps, lock the phone or put it face down on the table. Save from the app, from the notification or from a home-screen widget. If Android ever stops the service, the app notices and offers to resume, and an optional schedule limits listening to the hours you choose.
Battery that outlasts the buffer
Continuous capture is engineered for low power: a single low-rate audio stream, one write per second, and skip-silence so quiet stretches consume neither battery nor buffer.
The words, not just the sound
Saved a moment? PRO transcribes it on the phone in about 100 languages, detected automatically and working offline after a one-time model download. Trim the recording to the sentence that matters, copy the text, share the clip.
What it is not
It is not a call recorder: during a phone call Android gives the microphone to the call, and Life Recorder waits and resumes afterwards. It is not a cloud service: there is no account and no server that receives audio. Recording laws differ by country, and in some places everyone present must consent - please record responsibly.
Questions
Is there an Android app that records all the time in the background?
Yes. Life Recorder runs as a background service with a persistent notification and listens continuously, screen off included. It keeps a rolling buffer of the last 60 minutes and saves a recording only when you tap save.
Does an always-on recorder fill up my storage?
No. The buffer is a fixed size: about an hour of compressed audio that continuously overwrites itself. Only the recordings you save stay on the phone, and you delete them like any file.
Does Life Recorder record phone calls?
No. During a phone call Android hands the microphone to the call, so the buffer pauses. Life Recorder resumes listening by itself when the call ends. It records the room, not the line.
Why did Android stop the recorder, and how do I keep it running?
Some phones kill background apps to save battery, especially Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo and OnePlus. Open your phone's Settings, find Battery for Life Recorder and set it to Unrestricted or Don't optimize. Life Recorder also notices when it was stopped and offers to resume.
Is an always-on microphone a privacy risk?
Only the last hour ever exists, on the device, and nothing is uploaded: there are no servers that receive audio. Transcription runs on the phone too. Audio leaves the phone only when you share a recording or turn on backup to your own Google Drive.
