How to use it
- Press Record and allow the microphone when your browser asks. The level bar should move when you speak; keep it out of the red.
- Pause and Resume as often as you like; the paused time is not recorded. Press Stop and save when you are done.
- Each recording appears in the list with Play, a rename box and three downloads: the original file (WebM on Chrome, Edge and Firefox, M4A on Safari), WAV and MP3.
A closed tab does not lose your recording
The recorder writes a piece of the recording to your browser’s own storage (IndexedDB) every second while you record, instead of keeping it all in memory until you press stop. If the tab is closed, the browser crashes or the phone reloads the page, the next visit finds the unfinished recording and lists it as “recovered”, with everything up to the last saved second. On phones the page also asks the screen to stay on while recording (the Screen Wake Lock API, where the browser supports it), because some phones pause a page whose screen goes dark.
In our test we started a recording, waited 3.5 seconds and closed the tab without stopping. Reopening the page listed it as recovered, and its WAV download held 3.0 seconds of the test tone: only the last, unfinished second was missing.
Which file to download
| Format | What it is | Size for a minute of speech |
|---|---|---|
| Original (WebM / M4A) | Exactly what the browser recorded: Opus on Chrome, Edge and Firefox, AAC on Safari. Smallest, and plays in browsers and most media players. | about 1 MB at the 128 kbit/s the page asks for |
| WAV | Uncompressed 16-bit audio decoded from the recording. Opens in every audio editor and transcription service, but large. | about 5.8 MB mono, 11.5 MB stereo, at 48 kHz |
| MP3 | Converted with the same FFmpeg engine as our Audio Converter, at 128 kbit/s. Plays everywhere. The converter (about 31 MB) is downloaded the first time you ask for an MP3. | about 1 MB |
Voice clean-up turns on the browser’s own echo cancellation, noise suppression and automatic gain, which suit speech on a laptop or phone microphone. Turn it off for music or when you want the raw sound of a good microphone.
What we tested
On October 15, 2026, in Chromium 141.0.7390.37 with a simulated microphone playing a 440 Hz tone (the browser picked audio/webm with Opus):
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Record 3 s, pause 3 s, record 2 s | timer stood still while paused; the WAV held 4.98 s of audio at 48,000 Hz, loudest frequency 440.0 Hz (the tone) |
| Original and MP3 downloads | Opus 4.98 s and MP3 4.98 s, the same length as the WAV |
| Reload | the recording and its new name were still there; the WAV was identical in length |
| File names | a name typed as “Lecture: week 3?” downloaded as “Lecture week 3.wav”, safe on Windows, macOS and phones |
| Tab closed while recording | listed as recovered on the next visit, 3.0 s of 3.5 s kept |
| Delete | recording and every stored piece removed from the browser’s storage |
| Phone (390 px, touch) | recorded and saved; no sideways scrolling; 0 page errors |
Tips
- Speak about a hand’s width from a phone’s microphone, or 20 to 30 cm from a laptop, and watch the level bar: aim for the middle, not the red.
- Recordings are stored in this browser on this device. Download anything important; clearing your browsing data deletes them.
- Recording works in Chrome and Edge, Firefox, and Safari 14.1 or later (iPhone: iOS 14.5 or later for pause).
- To turn a recording into text, open it in our Audio Transcription tool, which also runs in your browser.
Sources
Checked on .
Frequently Asked Questions
Built by Derek Giordano · Part of Ultimate Design Tools