Why Your Call Recorder Only Records One Side

The short answer

Your recorder captures only your voice because Android no longer hands the call's incoming audio to ordinary apps. In May 2022 Google closed the route that call recorders had used for years, and pulled the apps that relied on it from its store. Nothing is broken on your phone, and no setting inside the old app will bring the other person back.

What still works in 2026 comes down to three options: a dialer your manufacturer built recording into, speakerphone with the quality cost that implies, or a separate companion app that handles the capture. This page covers each one, including where each falls short.

What Android changed, and when

Until 2022, call recorders leaned on Android's accessibility framework to reach the audio of a live call. It was never designed for that, and Google shut the door: from May 2022, apps whose main purpose was recording calls could no longer use the route, and were removed from the Play Store.

The effect was uneven, which is where most of the confusion comes from. Recording itself was never made illegal or impossible. Manufacturers kept the right to build it into their own dialer, so the capability survived on some phones and disappeared on others, with no announcement either way.

This is why the situation feels arbitrary from the outside. One user on a technical forum put it bluntly: "Google has gotten call recording in Android into an utterly broken state. Most of the time proper call recording is not possible." That is a fair description of what changed.

Why your phone behaves differently from someone else's

Three things decide whether both voices land in the file, and none of them is the app you chose.

The manufacturer. Samsung, Xiaomi, Google and OnePlus each ship a different dialer, with different rules about what may reach call audio.
The country. Several manufacturers enable native recording only in some regions, because local law differs. The same model records in one country and refuses in another.
The audio path. A carrier call, an internet call and a Bluetooth headset all travel differently. What works on one does not automatically work on the others.

Two people can install the same app on the same day, and one gets both voices while the other gets a monologue. That is the expected result of the rules above, not a defect in either phone.

Internet calls travel a different path, and usually behave better.

Recording WhatsApp calls

The three options left in 2026

Option	Both sides	Where it falls short
Your manufacturer's own dialer	Yes, where offered	Only on some brands, and only in some countries. You cannot add it if your phone shipped without it.
Speakerphone plus a voice recorder	Yes, roughly	Lower quality, room noise, and the call is audible to anyone nearby. Fine occasionally, unworkable as a habit.
A companion app that handles capture	Yes	Needs a one-time setup, and the companion is installed from the developer's site rather than the Play Store.
A recorder app on its own, after 2022	No	It records what your microphone hears. On a normal call, that is you.

Bluetooth headsets are the common exception to all of the above. Once audio is routed to the headset it leaves the reachable path, and most setups end up with one voice or none.

What a companion app actually does

A companion app is a second, free app with one job: handle the capture and pass the audio to the main app. Splitting the work in two is deliberate, and it has a consequence worth knowing.

Capture needs broader access than anything else in the product. Keeping it in a separate app means the app that holds your calls, your notes and your account does not need that access at all. The two talk to each other on the device, and the companion has no reason to reach the internet on its own.

The setup runs once. After that, calls are captured without opening anything, and the companion stays out of the way.

Why the companion is not on the Play Store

Google Play does not list apps whose primary purpose is recording calls. That is a store policy, and it applies to the whole category rather than to any particular app. The consequence is that the companion is downloaded from the developer's own website.

If installing outside the store gives you pause, that reaction is reasonable, and the answer is verification rather than reassurance. A published file has a checksum you can compare, a package name you can read, and a version you can check against the site. Several widely used Android utilities are distributed exactly this way, for the same policy reason.

Setting it up once

Install the main app from the Play Store and sign in.
Install the companion from the link the app gives you. It is a single file, and the app checks that it is the right one.
Grant the permissions it asks for, in the order it asks. Each screen says what the permission is for before the system dialog appears.
Make one test call and play it back. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that tells you whether your specific phone is set up correctly.

If the test call captures both voices, every call after it will too. If it does not, the next section covers what to change.

If you still hear only one side

Work through these in order. The first two resolve most cases.

Check the audio route. If the call went to a Bluetooth headset or a car system, try one call with the audio on the phone itself.
Check the companion is running. Aggressive battery settings on some brands close background apps. Excluding the companion from battery optimisation is the standard fix.
Try an internet call. If a WhatsApp call captures both sides and a carrier call does not, the limit is in the carrier audio path on your model, not in your setup.
Compare against your own dialer. If your phone has native recording, test one call with it. If that also captures one side, the constraint is the device.

Being told plainly that a given phone cannot do something is more useful than a promise that it works everywhere. Some models will not, and knowing which ones is part of choosing a tool.

Where the calls that matter actually happen

One thing worth knowing before you invest time in any of this. Across tens of thousands of calls measured on real Android devices, around 84% of work calls last under three minutes, fewer than one in a hundred takes place on Zoom, Meet or Teams, and roughly four in ten happen outside standard office hours.

That explains why meeting tools do not solve this problem, and why they are not trying to. They attach to a calendar invite and a browser window. The call where a price is agreed or a date is committed usually has neither. It rings, it lasts two minutes, and it is gone.

Which is also the reason capture is worth getting right once. A recording that holds both voices is not the goal in itself; it is what makes everything after the call possible.

Frequently asked questions

Why can I only hear myself on my call recordings?

Because Android stopped handing the incoming audio stream to regular apps. In May 2022 Google closed the accessibility route that call recorders relied on. Apps that were not updated keep recording, but they only capture what your own microphone picks up, which is your voice and, faintly, whatever leaks out of the earpiece.

Did Google ban call recording apps on Android?

Google closed the technical route that third-party recorders used, and removed apps that relied on it from the Play Store in May 2022. Recording itself is not banned. Manufacturers can still build it into their own dialer, which is why some phones record natively and others do not.

Why does my colleague's phone record both sides and mine does not?

Because it depends on the manufacturer and the country, not on the app. Samsung, Xiaomi and Google each ship a different dialer with different rules, and some of them enable native recording only in certain regions. Two people with the same app and different phones get different results.

Does using speakerphone fix it?

Partly, and at a cost. On speakerphone your microphone picks up the other person through the air, so both voices land in the file. Quality drops, background noise comes in, and the call is audible to everyone around you. It works as a workaround, not as a system.

Do Bluetooth headsets work for call recording?

Usually not. When audio is routed to a Bluetooth device it leaves the path a recorder can reach, so most setups end up with one side or with nothing at all. If recording matters on a given call, keep the audio on the phone.

What is a companion app and why is it needed?

It is a separate, free app that handles the capture and hands the audio to the main app. It exists because the two jobs need different permissions, and keeping them apart means the app holding your data does not need the broader access that capture requires.

Why is the companion app not on the Play Store?

Google Play does not list apps whose main purpose is recording calls. That is a store policy, not a signal about the app. It is downloaded from the developer's own site instead, which is also how several other well-known Android utilities are distributed.

Can WhatsApp and Telegram calls be recorded?

Yes, and in practice they behave better than regular calls on many devices, because internet calls travel a different audio path. Screen recording does not work for this: it produces a silent file. You need something that captures the call audio itself.

Why your call recorder only records your side.