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I use Republic Wireless so the majority of my voice calls are VoIP.

I use a call recording app to help me recall conversations after the fact. But in order for it to work, I have to turn off wifi and make the call over the cell network.

The recording app made me acknowledge that I understand that no app can record VoIP calls.

Question: why is cell recording allowed, but not VoIP. Is it the OS limitation? Is it for security? Is it a legal reason?

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....why is cell recording allowed,...

AFAIK call recording is not a feature of stock Android, though certain OEMs and custom ROMs enable it or can be done using apps. I guess legal restrictions is the reason for not enabling this feature, as call recording laws widely vary

VOIP recording is quite different from voice recording

Firstly, it is possible:

  • App recording VOIP calls is possible, see Call Recorder - IntCall for instance. There may be others too

  • Non app based services that record VOIP calls seem to be more - Dingtone, for example

What is common for VOIP recording and different from voice recording is that VOIP recording is done when it is routed through the servers provided by the app (see description in both links above). Ordinary voice recording is not bound by such limitations and can be natively record if enabled on device

Call Recording Software Wiki

VoIP Recording is usually restricted to streaming media recorders or software developed by the softphone or IP PBX creator. There are also solutions which use packet capture technology to passively record VoIP phone calls on the LAN.

Since VOIP is using data packets to transmit voice, these packets need to be actively or passively sniffed ( see wiki above for details) and this requires dedicated setup unlike voice recording ( which can be done natively on phone (if enabled) or using apps ). Hence, VOIP recording is not simple to implement on device like voice recording- a technology constraint

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  • You answer sort of makes sense to me. But what doesn't make sense to me is, why can't any audio going out your phone's speaker just be recorded once it's been decoded ? On my PC, I can just tell my sound card to record audio from any number of inputs via a software mixer. Is there some sort of hardware limitation where the mixing circuits just don't exist in mobile phone architecture (perhaps as a power saving decision) ? I suppose it's equally possible that the software mixer doesn't exist on the phone OS for the same power saving reason.
    – Walter Stabosz
    Commented Mar 27, 2017 at 7:19
  • That wikipedia article is a bit lacking in actual verifiable content. It says Hardware is required to make the voice signal available to the computer equipment., but doesn't cite any actual reference material.
    – Walter Stabosz
    Commented Mar 27, 2017 at 7:23
  • Thanks for accepting - I am not really sure what the limitation is , and I would go with hardware given your PC example. If I come across specifics, will update
    – beeshyams
    Commented Mar 27, 2017 at 8:17
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Please don't misguide. VOIP recording isn't possible due to sound Input device restriction. If a VOIP is working it occupies the "sound input device", as a result recorders will fail to record. It is simple as that. No other guesses.

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Please don't misguide? I guess the one misguiding is you. If you call through the sip protocol, then you can use CSipSimple. In call options, you can activate the call recording feature. It works just fine.

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VoIP calls cannot be recorded as of now in Android.

Normal Calls dont use microphone so another app can acquire microphone and record the conversation.

But in VoIP calls, the app would be using the microphone so another app cannot acquire, if it tries it fails with an error. If the recorder app tries to acquire microphone before the VoIP call then during the call the other side will not be able to hear anything.

So bottom line is, there is no such app as of now to record VoIP calls in Android.

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