Background Recording
Wave keeps recording when you leave the app or lock your phone — here's what you'll see on each platform.
You don't have to sit and stare at Wave while it records. Switch to another app, check your email, or lock the phone entirely — audio keeps capturing until you tap Finish. What you see while that happens depends on your phone.
Wave records in the background using iOS's audio background mode. While a recording is running, a Live Activity with a live timer sits on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, labelled Recording. Tap it to jump back into Wave.
If you've turned Live Activities off for Wave in iOS Settings, the recording still runs — you just won't see the card.
The Live Activity and Dynamic Island (iPhone)
The Lock Screen card follows your recording from start to finished Wave.
While recording. A red Recording dot and a running timer, with "Tap to open" underneath. In the Dynamic Island you get the same timer in compact form, and the full card when you expand it.
When you pause. The Live Activity disappears from your Lock Screen. This is expected — the system timer can't be paused, so Wave ends the card rather than let it drift away from your real recording time. Tap Resume in the app and a fresh card appears with the correct elapsed time. Your recording is unaffected either way.
After you tap Finish. The card doesn't vanish, it flips to processing and tracks the job for you:
- Processing — "Getting your Wave ready"
- Transcribing — "Turning your audio into text"
- Summarizing — "Writing your summary"
- Your finished Wave's title, with Tap to view session
Those updates are pushed from Wave's servers, so they keep arriving even with the app closed. Tapping the finished card opens that session directly, and clears the card.
Android doesn't get the processing card — the recording notification goes away when you finish, and your session shows its progress in the app instead. Either way you can close Wave while a recording processes; nothing waits on you.
If something interrupts a background recording
A phone call, Siri, or another app grabbing the microphone can interrupt recording while you're away from Wave. When that happens Wave sends a notification — Recording Needs Attention or Recording Interrupted — asking you to reopen the app so it can recover. Tap it and Wave picks up where it can.
Aggressive battery-saver or "app sleep" settings can also kill a background recording. If it happens regularly on your phone, exclude Wave from battery optimization. Full details are in handling audio interruptions during recordings.
FAQ
That's expected. Pausing ends the Live Activity because its timer can't be paused; resuming starts a new one with the right elapsed time. Nothing is lost from the recording.
No — swiping Wave out of the app switcher ends the recording. Audio captured up to that moment is still saved on your device: reopen Wave and it offers to recover it. See file recovery.
No. Wave keeps the screen awake while you're actually looking at the recording screen, but locking the phone or letting it sleep is fine.
Yes. The recording is written to your phone as you go and uploads once you're back online. See file recovery.
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