please help me send recordings without it eating my day
February 19, 2019 5:33 AM

Please help me send some recordings with no time wasted on my tinkering with my technology.

I need to do a project where I record some readings, and all have to be done in separate recordings. Most are several minutes long.
Then I have to send them to someone.
The issue: any time I've tried to email or text recordings in the past, I can't because of size or it says I can't because I'm not permitted or the upload bar gets stuck forever.
In fact, I am constantly struggling and wrestling with tech and I just know I won't be able to send these, and I don't have time to play around with it.
I have an iphone and a macbook air. The recipient has a PC but can translate.
Can you please tell me in a step by step way
1. What I should use to record (I was going to use Voice Memos) on iphone and
2. How I can most easily and with least hassle get them to the recipient.
Thank you!
posted by nantucket to Technology (7 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
Upload to dropbox, send link.

Are you having internet-connectivity problems?
posted by pompomtom at 5:41 AM on February 19, 2019


Voice Memos works but make sure to turn off Bluetooth before you record. Also apparently on newer iPhones it is difficult to type in a name for the file so beware.

You could also use Audacity which is free, full-featured but can be used simply, recording software.

Then, yes, dropbox or Google docs etc. and send link.
posted by wellred at 5:53 AM on February 19, 2019


As everyone is saying in a roundabout way, the recordings will be too large for email, never mind text, so upload to a 3rd party like dropbox or Google drive and email the links to that.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:55 AM on February 19, 2019


I’d go a step further and find a voice recording app that automatically saves to Dropbox with files named by time or similar. No personal experience but this one looks promising.
posted by supercres at 6:51 AM on February 19, 2019


I have a similar workflow and end up dumping video clips from an iPad to shared Dropbox folders.

My tip here: if you 'share' an image or video from photos to Dropbox filenames will be preserved. If you start from the Dropbox app and upload pictures and clips then they get named with a date_time which takes care of you timestamping for you.

I don't know about audio recordings.
posted by mce at 7:32 AM on February 19, 2019


The Otter app both records and transcribes (though you might not need that) and it's very easy to send a link to the recording/transcription as there's a Share button. It's very good.

Otter is free for up to six hours of recording a month, or pay for more.
posted by anadem at 9:39 AM on February 19, 2019


Voice Recorder from TapMedia [links: web page, iTunes Store] should work well for this. The free version allows you to record in several formats including WAV, AIFF, CAF, M4A, and MP3. I use MP3 for small size and maximum compatibility. You can manually share any recording via iOS share sheets, or set automatic upload to cloud services including Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, even your own WebDav or FTP site. This is all the free tier; the upgrade offers notes on individual recordings, transcription services, and removal of the barely-intrusive ads.

Very satisfied user, no connection to the company.
posted by conscious matter at 12:23 PM on February 20, 2019


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