How to play a recording in Voice Memos on iPhone

You can play audio you recorded on your iPhone using the playback controls. You can also adjust the playback options to change playback speed, reduce background noise, and fill in silences.

Those options go further, too. You can enhance a recording, skip over gaps when playing back a recording, turn on Studio Sound, or reset the playback options, and none of it changes the recording itself.

Here’s how to play a recording in Voice Memos on iPhone.

Note: These settings don’t change the recording itself. Whatever you choose stays with that specific recording, which means it’s applied each time you play it but doesn’t apply to other recordings.

Control	Description
	Play
	Pause
	Skip backward 15 seconds
	Skip forward 15 seconds

Quick tip: You can tap its name to rename it any time the recording is open.

Change the playback speed

You can play a recording at a faster or slower speed.

1. Open the Voice Memos app (in the Utilities folder) on your iPhone.
2. In the list of recordings, tap the recording you want to play. Tap the More button.
3. Tap the Options button and drag the slider toward the tortoise for a slower speed, or toward the rabbit for a faster speed.
4. Tap the Done button and tap the Play button to play the recording.

Enhance a recording

When you play Mono and Stereo recordings, turning on Enhance Recording reduces background noise and echo.

1. Open the Voice Memos app (in the Utilities folder) on your iPhone.
2. In the list of recordings, tap the recording you want to enhance and tap the More button.
3. Tap Options, then turn on Enhance Recording.
4. Tap the Done button and tap the Play button to play the recording.

Skip over gaps when playing back a recording

For Mono and Stereo recordings, Voice Memos can analyze them and automatically skip over gaps during playback.

1. Open the Voice Memos app (in the Utilities folder) on your iPhone.
2. Tap the recording you want to play and tap the More button.
3. Tap Options and turn on Skip Silence.
4. Tap the Done button and tap the Play button to play the recording.

Turn on Studio Sound

In a Spatial Audio recording, Studio Sound adjusts the levels of background sound and reverb so the voice sounds more like it was recorded in a studio.

Only Spatial Audio recordings work with Studio Sound.

Studio Sound also recognizes music, rather than treating it as background sound. But music is properly isolated only if you’ve made the recording in Spatial Audio on iPhone 18 Pro models. Other iPhone models reduce music along with background sound.

1. Open the Voice Memos app (in the Utilities folder) on your iPhone.
2. Tap the recording you want to play and tap the More button.
3. Tap Options and turn on Studio Sound.
4. Drag the slider to increase or decrease the effect.
5. Tap the Done button and tap the Play button to play the recording.

Reset the playback options

At once, you can return a recording’s playback options to their original settings.

1. Open the Voice Memos app (in the Utilities folder) on your iPhone.
2. Tap the recording you want to turn off playback options for. Then tap the More button.
3. Tap Options, then tap Reset.