How to Record the Screen on an iPhone

Cassandra McBride August 20, 2021

Screen record has become such a popular feature over the past few years because it goes beyond the capabilities of the classic screenshot. The screen record function is perfect for a lot of reasons. You can use it for training, capturing moments, and capturing videos you can’t download.

Fortunately, Apple adopted the function with iOS 11, and most iPhone users have screen record as a native feature on their phones today. This article will show you how to use your iPhone’s native screen record function as well as give you some helpful tips along the way.

How to record your screen on an iPhone

Perhaps you’ve searched your phone and scoured the Settings looking for the option to record your screen but are left wanting. That’s because the screen record feature is hidden in the control center. To use the function, we’ll first need to add the icon to your control center.

Customize your Control Center

To record your screen on iOS, you first need to customize the fancy new Control Center. In iOS, the Control Center is on a single screen and shows clusters of controls.

By default, these let you toggle Airplane mode on and off, disconnect Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (although this actually drops these connections for nearby devices but does not actually disable them completely), control music playback, adjust the volume and brightness, and open certain tools including a torch, timer, calculator and camera.

To customize these panels, go to Settings then Control Center.
Go to Customize Controls. In this menu, you will see which controls are currently included.
To remove one of these controls, hit the red icon to the left of the name and click the word Remove that appears on the right.
Under More Controls, press the green icon to the left of Screen Recording and it will jump into the Include list.
You can change the order of this list using the three lines to the right of each name and dragging and dropping it to the desired position.

Record your screen

Now that the Screen Record option is in the Control Center, we can start screen recording. Depending on the iPhone model you’re using, you can access the Control Center by swiping up from the bottom, or by swiping down in the upper right-hand corner.

Once you have customized the Control Center, a small circular icon will appear when you swipe up from the bottom of the display. This is the Screen Record icon.
Whenever you want to record your screen on iOS, swipe up (or down depending on which iPhone you’re using) to open the Control Center and press this Screen Recording icon. Everything on your screen is now being recorded.
While you are recording your screen, a red bar will sit along the top of the display to tell you it is still recording.
Once you’ve finished recording your screen, press this red bar, and a pop-up will appear and you can either press cancel to continue recording, or press Stop to end the recording.
The screen record is saved in your Camera Roll and can be shared with friends, upload to social networks, or you can edit it using Clips or iMovie.

As you can see, it is really easy to record your screen on an iPhone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the answers to more of your questions about recording the screen on an iPhone.

Where are my screen recordings saved?

Apple automatically saves your screen recordings in your phone’s gallery. All you need to do is open the Photos app, tap on Album, then you can scroll down to Screen Recordings. Here, you will see the video you’re looking for.

My screen recording button is greyed out. What’s happening?

Technology isn’t perfect, and even the screen recording function can have issues. The first thing you’ll want to do is turn your phone off and back on again. If it still isn’t cooperating, check your Screen Time settings. Make sure that there’s no time limit set for the Screen Record function. Lastly, check to see if the screen record will work for another application. Some apps can detect screen record and therefore block the feature.