I want to save this moment forever

January 11, 2013 6:08 AM

I'm looking for phone apps that will allow me to easily and simply record sound and simultaneously back up the recording offsite (send it to email, save to a cloud server, etc.).

I want to be able to hit a button on my phone that will start recording and automatically save that recording somewhere other than (or in addition to) in my phone's memory. I realize that the quality of the recording will mostly depend on the physical capabilities of the phone, but I'd like the recording to be as high-quality as possible. And I'd love to make a list of apps available for a wide variety of phones. If there is some way to do this on non-smartphones (i.e., by saving the message to voicemail or something), that would also be awesome.

I know these sorts of apps exist, because I've heard of people using them to record encounters with police, fights with significant others, etc., in which their phones ended up lost or destroyed, but the recordings were still accessible to them later. You would think I'd easily be able to find this on Google, but either it is hard to find, or I am terrible at Google. Thanks for your help!

posted by decathecting to technology (7 answers total)

On Android this is easy with Dropbox. Look for "camera uploads".
posted by mzurer at 6:58 AM on January 11

Mzurer, thanks. I can't tell from the description, however, whether the upload can be set to be contemporaneous. I'm looking for a solution in situations where the recording is made, and then the phone is immediately lost or destroyed such that there's no chance to upload the recording before losing access to the phone. So what I'd like is for the audio to be sent out to some safe outside source while the recording is being made, so that it can be retrieved later even if there was no time to separately upload it. Can that be done?
posted by decathecting at 7:19 AM on January 11

It doesn't stream it as the video is recorded, it uploads it after it is created.
posted by mzurer at 7:45 AM on January 11

Evernote allows you to record audio memos like this.

Oh.. upon refresh and reading your followup, I'm not sure evernote "streams" the recording in realtime, but instead immediately uploads it.
posted by jozxyqk at 8:12 AM on January 11

Coprecorder for iPhone. Not sure if Android version exists. Via OpenWatch.
posted by daveliepmann at 8:30 AM on January 11

Daveliepmann, that's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

If anyone else has any other ideas, I'd love to get more options, if they're available.
posted by decathecting at 8:44 AM on January 11

I know a lot of people use it principally to make/store/share electronic music, but I use SoundCloud in precisely the way you describe.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 10:36 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]