How to send voice note on iphone

Have you ever tried to send a voice message in iMessages on your iPhone? You’ll agree that it wasn’t Apple’s best design choice. Sending longer voice messages was a downright miserable experience.

If you’re unaware of what we’re talking about, here’s a refresher – to record voice messages in iMessage, you had to keep holding down the Voice Message icon. As soon as you lifted your finger, the recording would stop. And if the lift wasn’t intentional, you’d either have to discard the recording and start over or send multiple, broken recordings. But here’s some good news to brighten your day – Apple has redesigned the Voice Message feature in iOS 16.

There’s no need to keep holding the Voice Message button anymore. But the icon has been moved to a new place. If you haven’t been able to figure out how to send a voice note in iMessage anymore for that reason, don’t fret. Here’s everything you need to know.

Where is the New Audio Message Button in iMessages?

As mentioned before, the Voice Message button has been relocated in iOS 16 from its traditional place on the right of the message field. You’ll still see a ‘Microphone’ icon where you have come to expect the Voice Message button, but in a strange turn of events, this button now activates Voice Typing.

Since dictation has also got a major overhaul this year, it seems like the motivation behind this reason. The Voice Message button has become an iMessage app and moved to the iMessage app drawer instead. You don’t have to add the app from the App Store to access it like other apps in the app drawer, though. You can directly access the ‘Audio Messages’ app after moving to iOS 16.

If you are still on iOS 15, the voice note icon will be accessible from the same place where the new Dictation icon is in iOS 16.

When you receive a voice message, tap on the triangle play button to hear the audio message. If you have enabled Raise to Listen under Settings app → Messages, you can lift the phone to your ear (like on a phone call) and listen to the voice message.

By default, voice messages expire after 2 minutes of listening. But you can choose to keep/save voice messages.

Send audio messages using Voice Memos app on iPhone

Besides that, there is also a workaround to send voice notes from Messages. For that, we will be using the Voice Memos app. Here’s how it works:

1. Open Voice Memos.
2. Tap the red button to record a voice note.
   Pro Tip: While recording, tap anywhere on the blank recording card to open it in full screen to access additional controls.
3. Tap the red square button or tap Pause and Done.
4. Next, tap the three dots icon on the top right corner of the recorded voice note.
   On iOS 15: tap the three dots icon at the bottom left of the recording.
   
   
   
5. Select Share.
6. Tap Messages and select the contact.
7. Now, tap the send button.
   
   
   

Other than the built-in Voice Memos app, you can also use any third-party recording app in place of the Voice Memos app to send audio notes.

Signing off…

These are two easy ways to send a voice message on the iPhone. The steps are almost similar to iPad and Mac. But these extra steps to record voice note is only available in Messages. On other messaging platforms, all you have to do is tap the mic icon and start recording. Couldn’t Apple have made it easier? Let me know in the comments.

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