The button is missing from Control Centre
It has not been added yet, or Screen Time is blocking it. Settings › Control Centre to add it; Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › Content Restrictions › Screen Recording to unblock it.
Every iPhone since the 5s can record its own screen, with no app and no watermark. The feature is switched off out of the box, which is why most people are convinced their phone does not have it. Here is how to switch it on, record sound with it, and fix it when it misbehaves.
The short answer
To record your voice as well, press and hold the record button before you start and switch the Microphone on.
01 Step one
This is the step almost everyone is missing. Screen Recording exists on your iPhone already — it just is not in Control Centre until you put it there.
Open Settings
Tap the grey Settings icon on your Home Screen, then scroll down to Control Centre and open it.
Find Screen Recording
On iOS 17 and earlier, scroll to More Controls and look for Screen Recording. On iOS 18 and later the list is called Add a Control and you can search it.
Tap the green plus
That moves Screen Recording into Included Controls. You can drag it up the list so it sits near the top of Control Centre where it is easy to reach.
Check it landed
Open Control Centre. You should now see a button made of two concentric circles. That is the recorder.
If Screen Recording does not appear in Settings › Control Centre, it has almost certainly been blocked by Screen Time rather than removed. Go to Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › Content Restrictions › Screen Recording and set it to Allow. On a school, work or family-managed iPhone this may be locked by whoever set the device up.
The other possibility is the iPhone is too old. Screen recording arrived with iOS 11, which needs an iPhone 5s or newer. An iPhone 5 or 5c cannot run it and has no built-in way to record its screen.
02 Step two
Once the button is in Control Centre, a recording is three taps away.
Tap the record button
Two concentric circles. A three-second countdown starts so you have time to close Control Centre and get to whatever you want to capture.
Recording is live
The status bar turns red, or a red pill appears around the clock on Face ID iPhones. Everything on screen is being captured, including notifications — turn on a Focus first if that matters.
Stop from the status bar
Tap the red clock or the red bar at the top, then tap Stop in the dialog that appears. This is the fastest way and works from inside any app.
Or stop from Control Centre
Open Control Centre again and tap the now-red record button. Either method saves the same file.
There is no time limit on iPhone screen recording. It stops when you stop it, when the phone runs out of storage, or when the battery dies. A minute of 1080p screen recording is roughly 40 to 70 MB, so a long capture eats storage quickly.
03 Audio
There are two completely separate kinds of sound in a screen recording, and mixing them up is the single most common reason people end up with a silent video.
The first is app audio — the sound the iPhone itself is making, like a game, a video or a song. This is captured automatically. You do not need to switch anything on for it, and the Silent switch does not disable it. What does affect it is the media volume: if the volume was at zero while you recorded, the recording is silent too.
The second is your own voice through the microphone. This is off by default and it has to be switched on before each session, which is why so many tutorials get recorded with no narration.
To switch it on, open Control Centre and press and hold the record button — a long press, not a tap. A panel opens with a Microphone button at the bottom. Tap it so it turns red and reads Microphone On, then tap Start Recording in the same panel. The setting is remembered between recordings, but it is worth checking before anything important.
04 After recording
Screen recordings go straight into the Photos app, alongside your photos and videos. Open Photos and the newest recording is at the bottom of Recents. On iOS 16 and later there is also a dedicated album: in Photos, go to Albums, scroll to Media Types, and open Screen Recordings.
The file is an .mp4 recorded at your screen's own resolution. You can trim it without any extra app: open the recording in Photos, tap Edit, drag the handles at either end of the filmstrip, then tap Done and choose Save Video as New Clip if you want to keep the original.
To get the recording off the phone, share it as you would any video — AirDrop to a Mac, upload it to Files or Drive, or send it through any messaging app. Long recordings will be compressed by most messengers, so AirDrop or a cloud upload keeps the quality.
Deleted videos sit in Photos › Albums › Recently Deleted for 30 days. Open it, select the recording and tap Recover. After 30 days it is gone unless you have an iCloud or computer backup from before the deletion.
05 Troubleshooting
Almost every failure comes down to one of these six things.
The button is missing from Control Centre
It has not been added yet, or Screen Time is blocking it. Settings › Control Centre to add it; Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › Content Restrictions › Screen Recording to unblock it.
The recording is a black screen
You were recording DRM-protected video — Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and most paid streaming apps. They instruct iOS to exclude their video from any capture. There is no setting that changes this, and recording streamed films is copyright infringement in most countries.
It stops on its own after a few seconds
Nearly always storage. Check Settings › General › iPhone Storage — recording needs continuous free space, and iOS ends the capture rather than filling the disk. Free up a few gigabytes and try again. An overheating phone will also stop recording to protect itself.
There is no sound
The microphone was off, the media volume was down, or the app suppresses audio capture. The audio section above covers each case.
The recording never saved
If the phone ran out of space or was force-restarted mid-recording, the file is lost — iOS writes it out when you press stop, not continuously. Check Photos › Recents first, then Recently Deleted.
The video is choppy or low quality
Screen recording is demanding. Close background apps, let the phone cool down, disable Low Power Mode, and avoid recording while charging a hot device. Recording at a lower screen brightness does not help; recording fewer heavy apps at once does.
06 Beyond the basics
Apple's recorder is deliberately simple. These are its real limits, so you know when to reach for something else.
No facecam
iOS records the screen or the camera, never both at once. Anything with a reaction bubble in the corner was made with a separate app afterwards.
No editing beyond trimming
Photos can cut the start and end. Anything else — captions, zooms, cuts in the middle — needs an editor.
No separate audio tracks
Your voice and the app audio are mixed into one track, so you cannot lower one without lowering the other later.
No region selection
It records the whole screen. Cropping has to happen afterwards, which costs resolution.
It records notifications
Anything that pops up is in the video. Turn on Do Not Disturb before recording anything you plan to share.
No live streaming
The recorder saves a file. Streaming to Twitch or YouTube from an iPhone needs a dedicated app.
07 Before you record
Recording your own screen is your business. Recording other people is not always, and iOS enforces some of that for you: audio from phone calls and FaceTime is stripped from screen recordings, and protected streaming video comes out black.
Where iOS leaves the decision to you, the rules still apply. Many countries and US states require every participant to consent before a conversation can be recorded, and that covers video calls in apps that do not block capture. Recording a paid course, a film or a live sports stream is a copyright matter regardless of which tool you used. If you are recording something with another person in it, the simple version is to ask first.
The built-in recorder captures your screen and nothing else — there is no way to film yourself at the same time. That is the gap Reaction Cam fills. Record your gameplay or walkthrough with iOS the normal way, then open Reaction Cam, pick that clip, and film your face and voice over the top in one pass.
10 Questions
The questions people ask most, answered properly.
Add Screen Recording to Control Centre in Settings › Control Centre, then open Control Centre and tap the button made of two concentric circles. A three-second countdown runs and recording begins. Tap the red status bar and then Stop to finish. The video appears in Photos.
It almost certainly does, but the button has not been added to Control Centre yet — it is not there by default. Add it in Settings › Control Centre. If Screen Recording is missing from that list too, Screen Time restrictions are hiding it: Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions › Content Restrictions › Screen Recording › Allow. Only an iPhone 5 or 5c genuinely lacks the feature.
Settings › Control Centre, scroll to the list of available controls, and tap the green plus next to Screen Recording. That adds it to Control Centre permanently. You only ever have to do this once.
App sound is recorded automatically as long as the media volume is up. For your own voice, open Control Centre and press and hold the record button rather than tapping it, then turn Microphone on in the panel that appears and tap Start Recording.
The most common cause is that the microphone was off — a normal tap on the record button does not enable it, only a long press reveals the option. Other causes are the media volume being down, an app that suppresses audio capture, or a call, since iOS strips call audio from recordings by design.
Tap the red clock or the red bar at the top of the screen and confirm with Stop. You can also reopen Control Centre and tap the red record button. Both save the recording immediately.
Into the Photos app. They appear in Recents and, on iOS 16 and later, in a dedicated album under Albums › Media Types › Screen Recordings.
No. Apple does not impose one. Recordings end when you stop them, when the phone runs out of storage, or when it overheats or the battery dies. Storage is the real limit — expect roughly 40 to 70 MB per minute.
Identically on all of them. The only difference across models is how you open Control Centre: swipe down from the top-right corner on any iPhone with Face ID, which covers the X and everything after it.
The same way, but Control Centre opens with a swipe up from the bottom edge instead of down from the corner. Every iPhone from the 5s onwards supports screen recording, provided it is running iOS 11 or later.
You can record the picture, but iOS deliberately removes call audio from screen recordings, so the result is silent video of the call. This applies to FaceTime and to normal phone calls. It is a deliberate restriction, not a bug, and recording calls without consent is illegal in many places.
Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and most paid streaming services use DRM that instructs iOS to exclude their video from any screen capture. The recording runs, but that area is black. No setting or app changes this, and recording streamed films is copyright infringement in most countries.
Yes — anything that appears on screen is in the video, including message previews. Turn on Do Not Disturb or a Focus before recording anything you intend to share.
Not with the built-in recorder. iOS records the screen or the camera, never both. To add a face cam you record the screen first, then use a separate app to film yourself over that footage.
You cannot. iOS stops screen recording when the display locks, because the recorder captures exactly what is being displayed. Recording audio with the screen off is a job for the Voice Memos app.
Open it in Photos, tap Edit, drag the handles at either end of the filmstrip to the section you want, then tap Done. Choose Save Video as New Clip if you want to keep the untrimmed original as well.
Yes, within 30 days. Photos › Albums › Recently Deleted, select the recording, tap Recover. After 30 days it is only recoverable from an iCloud or computer backup made before the deletion.
It captures at your display's own resolution and frame rate — up to 1080p or higher depending on the model — and there is no setting to change it. If you need something smaller, record as normal and compress afterwards.
Yes, and it is the better option for anything you plan to edit. Connect the iPhone with a cable, open QuickTime Player on the Mac, choose File › New Movie Recording, then click the arrow next to the record button and select your iPhone as the camera and microphone source. You get a clean recording without a red status bar, saved straight to the Mac.
Yes, identically. Add it in Settings › Control Centre, and open Control Centre by swiping down from the top-right corner on Face ID iPads or up from the bottom on models with a Home button.
No. That advice is a decade out of date — before iOS 11 there was no built-in recorder and jailbreaking was the only route. Every supported iPhone has recorded its own screen natively since 2017. Jailbreaking today only costs you security and your warranty.
No. Apple does not give web pages access to screen capture in Safari, and because every iOS browser must use Apple's engine underneath, no browser on iPhone can offer it. Browser-based recorders like ours work on computers only. On the phone, the built-in recorder is the answer.