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I'm looking for a voice recorder to be used on one of my Android devices.

Requirements (must-have)

  • works on Android 6+
  • lets me set the desired recording quality (a discussion must not be recorded HiFi – but a music session probably should)
  • lets me set markers while recording (think of chapters in an eBook, or a topic switch in a meeting). Playback being capable to "jump to" markers.
  • must be free
  • must be privacy-friendly (as much as possible; in the best case, it will only require permissions to access the mike and the storage)
  • low battery use (so I can have it running multiple hours without a break)
  • support "long recording sessions" (it's OK if it starts a new file e.g. every hour); a 6h limit would be OK
  • Recording in background (even when display is off)
  • playback capabilities (to listen into my recordings)
  • should be simple and easy to use (so no "overblown" GUI)
  • "small and handsome" (.apk shouldn't be tens of megabytes in size)

Nice-to-Have

  • FOSS (free as in "free speech" and as in "free beer")
  • availability on F-Droid
  • visual "gain control" (so I can e.g. see whether the speaker will be heard in the recording)
  • tagging of recordings (e.g. "speeches", "meetings", "business", "personal" …)
  • simple edit functionality (to e.g. cut off from the start or the end of an recording, or to split a file)
  • date-and-time stamping (if that's possible, e.g. via Metadata). Playback being capable to "jump to" timestamps.
  • option to "skip silence" (i.e. only record if there's sound)
  • also works on Kitkat (yes, I have some older devices which could serve as "dedicated voice recorder")
  • still being actively maintained would be appreciated

Definitely NOT needed/wanted

  • cloud storage (Dropbox, GDrive, whatever)
  • tons of trackers and ad modules
  • unrelated "Gimmicks"

I've already checked related questions, and they do not match my needs:

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  • Just adding some notes, as I've only found those apps now but haven't tried them yet. Coming pretty close at least are Canomapp and Meeting Notes. If anyone uses one of them, an answer would be welcome (even if it wouldn't fit all requirements, the app might be helpful to others or be a fallback for me if nothing better was turning up).
    – Izzy
    Mar 9, 2018 at 12:56

1 Answer 1

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From what I can see the app Recordense Voice Recorder meets all of your requirements (except battery usage which I don't know, but with the screen off I doubt it will suck much battery.)

Even let's you add tags from the lock screen notification directly.

Has a free version with some limitations (the worst of which is only 3 tags per recording https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ls.iris.apps.recorder.light (the pro version is only $3.35)

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  • Looks very promising indeed, thanks (and +1) – but contains Admob and Flurry in both, the free and the paid version. OK, I wrote "tons of trackers" as no-go, and this is "just 2 of them" :) And an added plus: Pebble support. Hm. Take it for Pebble or leave it for trackers? You brought me into trouble now :D Unfortunately, the Pro version uses Google License Check and thus is unlikely to work on Google-free devices :(
    – Izzy
    Mar 12, 2018 at 14:01

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