Android 9 Pie closes all doors to call recording sans root, say third-party app devs

Native call recording on smartphones hasn’t been available to all users around the world thanks to varied regional rules and restrictions. However, third-party apps have always been available.

After Google discontinued the official call recording API with Android 6 Marshmallow, many third-party app developers managed to find a way out to support call recording till date (at least until Android 8.1).

But with Android 9 Pie, Google seems to be closing all doors to call recording, at-least for third party app developers.

Developers/administrators of popular call recording apps like Call Recorder – ACR, BoldBeast Android Call Recorder and other similar apps like Call Recorder – Skvalex are informing users that their apps won’t be supporting call recording on Android 9 and above.

Here’s the proof

ACR has posted on their forum a thread informing users about the change.

We would like to inform our users that there will be no call recording workaround on Android 9 and above. No call recording app will be able to do so.

Luckily, few developers found a workaround and it worked up until Android 8.1. Sadly, we have learnt that Google has closed that workaround on Android 9.

Something similar can be seen at boldbeast forum with one of their administrators saying

Google added more call recording limits in Android 9 Pie. Please use Record Mode 13 to record calls (thanks to Jeremy).
If Record Mode 13 doesn’t work all recorders in the whole market don’t work either for sure, in this case you should root the phone then Boldbeast can fix the problem.

Hold your horses and better not get excited after reading “use Record Mode 13” part mentioned in the administrator’s statement. Some of the users who tried this sugestion have confirmed it did not help.

So apparently, there’s no way out, unless you root your phone (as mentioned by the boldbeast administrator). But that voids the device’s warranty, so will likely not be a feasible solution for a large number of smartphone users.

We couldn’t locate any word from Google itself on the matter. But such statements coming from ACR and BoldBeast makes things all but official. There were reports that Android 9 Pie would bring native call recording support, but there has been no official confirmation on that as well.

Sad, but that’s how it currently stands. How do you feel about this change? Do let us know in the comments section below.

P.S. Due credits to Alexander Skvortsov, developer of Call Recorder – Skvalex, for the tip. Here’s the relevant help page on their site.

Note: We have also compiled a (continuously updated) list of issues/problems/bugs reported with (or triggered by) Android 9 Pie ever since it got live. Take a look to catch hold of all Pie-related issues.

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