Music has the power to completely transform the impact of a video. Play sinister music over a recording of a cute kitten, and the video goes from being adorable to being a little disturbing. Play uplifting music over a video of someone putting out the trash, and a simple chore becomes a Herculean epic.
Adding music to videos you’verecorded on your iPhonehas never been that easy, however. You have to use apps such asiMovieor third-party video editing apps, which adds a whole new layer of hassle to creating your video. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just play music on your iPhone as you’re filming?
Well, iniOS 18you can do exactly that. A new Camera setting in iOS 18 allows you to stop your iPhone from automatically stopping audio playback when you start recording video. It means that whatever audio is playing on your iPhone is captured along with the external audio, allowing you to add a soundtrack to what you’re recording. Here’s how to capture audio playback when recording a video in iOS 18.
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How to enable audio playback during video recording
Audio will no longer automatically pause with the setting enabled
In iOS 18, there’s now a new option within the Camera settings that will stop audio from automatically pausing when you startrecording video on your iPhone. If you toggle this setting on, you can start recording with audio playing, and the audio will continue to play as you record. Both the audio fromyour iPhoneand the audio from whatever you’re filming will be recorded, although audio will only be captured in mono. You can turn the setting off, and your iPhone will return to automatically pausing audio playback when you start recording video.
How to capture audio playback when recording a video
You can use the feature in multiple recording modes
Once audio playback has been enabled in settings, any audio that you’re playing on your iPhone will continue to play when you start recording video. This includes audio from apps such asApple Musicand Spotify, audio from podcast apps, and more.
However, there are some circumstances where audio playback may stop. If you’re playing video content from a streaming app such as Netflix, for example, playback will automatically stop when you open the Camera app, so that you can’t simply record thenew series of Squid Gamefrom your iPhone screen.
You can record audio playback in all of the iPhone video recording modes, including Cinematic,Slo-Mo, and Spatial.
When recording in Slo-Mo mode, the audio from your iPhone will be slowed down to the same speed as the video.
How to capture audio playback when recording a video in iOS 17
If you don’t have iOS 18 there is a workaround
If you haven’t yet updated to iOS 18, or your iPhone doesn’t support iOS 18, it’s still possible to capture the audio playback from your iPhone when recording a video, although it requires using a workaround. If you leave your camera in Photo mode, you can use theQuickTakefeature to start recording, and your iPhone audio will not be automatically paused.
QuickTake video is limited to 30fps at 1080p, so you won’t be able to record audio playback in higher quality than this when using this workaround.
You can listen to music via headphones when recording video
Starting to record will no longer stop audio from playing
There is another, possibly unintended, benefit to being able to capture audio playback when recording video in iOS 18. Previously, if you had been using headphones to listen to music or other audio, when you started recording a video, your music would stop playing through your headphones, even though this audio wouldn’t get picked up when recording.
With the new feature in iOS 18, you can toggle theAllow Audio Playbacksetting on, which will stop your iPhone from automatically pausing any audio when you record video. This means that you can continue listening to musicthrough your headphoneswhile you record video without the playback stopping every time you start to record.
When you’re listening to music through headphones, the audio playback that you can hear in your headphones isn’t captured, so you don’t have to worry about the music drowning out the content that you’re trying to record.
