How to get Voice Memos off your iPhone without iTunes (Spoiler: Don't use Voice Memos!)

I had a bit of a freakout earlier this month over the utter inability to take long (read: anything over 2 minutes) Voice Memos off of an iPhone without physically tethering it to iTunes and transferring the file.

Today, I stumbled across a solution - more of a workaround - that accomplishes what I want.

Step 1: Don't use Voice Memos. Seriously, don't. That's half the problem.

Step 2: Install the SoundCloud app. It's free!

Step 3: Use SoundCloud to record your audio file.

Step 4: When you're done, upload it to the SoundCloud site straight from your iPhone. (You'll need to create a free account, but big deal.)

Step 5: Go to the SoundCloud website, log into your account, and download the file back down to your computer, where you can edit or otherwise manipulate it to your heart's content.

Step 6: Relax, make yourself a cafe latte, and enjoy your day.

Simple.

Bye, Voice Memos.

(The great irony of this is that I've actually had SoundCloud on my iPhone for ... I dunno. Six months? A year? And while I use the website all the time for work-related stuff, I've never actually used the app until today. D'oh!)

2015 EDIT: I still get lots and lots of Google search hits that end up here, but unfortunately, this trick hasn't worked in a while because SoundCloud no longer lets you record from the app. Here's an updated post with a new workflow that actually lets you use Voice Memos and iOS9's share menu to get Voice Memos off your iPhone. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Car camping in our Toyota Rav4

Image
My wife and I booked a tenting trip to Yellowstone National Park last summer. We had never been there before and were really excited to go, but weren't thrilled that we were sleeping in a tent in bear country. We are fundamentally too cheap to buy a camper trailer, and our Toyota Rav4 doesn't have a big enough engine to pull anything larger than a ladybug anyway, so our options were pretty limited. During a discussion of those limited options just weeks ahead of the Yellowstone trip, I Google'd "car camping Rav4" and discovered there's a whole sub-culture out there of people who have retrofitted their Rav4 vehicles to sleep in the back. We started devouring other people's blog posts and videos on the subject and quickly set about to lifehacking our car and our trip to suit our needs. So we did a live beta test in Yellowstone and slept in our vehicle. We loved it. Sleeping in our Rav4 was quiet and dry. We didn't have to worry about wildlife, and ...
Keep reading

The Amazing Survivor Race

Image
The Amazing Survivor Race This is, I say humbly, the greatest idea in the history of television: CBS must tape seasons of Survivor and The Amazing Race simultaneously. About half-way through the tapings, the Amazing Race teams all end up routed to Survivor Island. The twist in the show is that the last team to the pit stop for that leg of the race doesn't get booted from the show, but changes shows and is now on Survivor, split up and on separate tribes. At the same time, both Survivor tribes go to tribal council separately. The voted off members, however, don't go home - they are told that they have to team up and go on the rest of The Amazing Race. It would be the ultimate twist in both games, would briefly intersect two hit TV shows, and provide at least two episodes of television (one for each show) that would be absolutely must-watch TV, particularly if CBS could pull this off spoiler-free and ensure that no one knows about it before the episodes air. NOTE: I...
Keep reading

Buff Pack Run Cap review (and bonus thoughts on Run Cap Pro)

Image
Buff Pack Run Cap in red (left), Buff Cap Pro (centre and right) Every once in a while, I remember I have a blog... And I've edited this post at the bottom. I've become a huge fan of the Buff Cap Pro, which is one of Buff's lesser known products (and one that I've never actually seen for retail sale anywhere). I took a flyer on ordering one from Buff's Canadian website last year and loved it so much I bought a second one on sale last month. The Cap Pro is a terrific little hat. It's like wearing a small Buff on your head, but with a little sun visor attached to the front. They can be totally crunched up and packed tight in a pocket, are pretty breathable, and keep the sun from roasting my increasingly balding head. While I wore a Tilley Hat for year and years, the Cap Pro has become my go-to vacation hat. It keeps the sun off my head and the sweat out of my eyes. And I can crumple it up and stick it in my pocket at restaurants and such. (Which is much...
Keep reading