Since one of the previous posters mentioned, that Air Droid exists for iPhone, that would be my preferred solution.
And it works like described above.
A simple solution would also be to send the file via mail.

First of all, you need to know WHERE inside the phone, is the recording. Is it in the Record app or something? Maybe you could record from the Phone app the message and then it would be available on the Record app. But once you have the file located IN the phone, all you have to do is "share", mail, and send it to your account. Pictures are easy, but for everything else with Windows you need iTunes (which is not to be confused with Apple Music, the subscription which replaced iTunes on MacOS but still works the same but without the iOS integration because it's all native with Apple).

iTunes is a bloated piece of **** software, HOWEVER, you do get some "slightly" useful insights on files and such within the apps... Unless they changed it, AGAIN. I remember using it way back in 2012 or 2013 to access ebooks, recordings and such (inside the Record App, never tried the Phone app). Hate iTunes...

The steps below are assuming that your iPhone still has a 3,5" (headphones) output port:
- Connect the iPhone to the audio input port of your PC, using a minijack (3.5") cable.
- Find some free audio recording software (like Audacity), install it, run it. (if needed, check/set input port in settings)
- Press record in the above software, play back the sound that you want to record on the phone.
- Trim if needed; save as wav.

(I can't be more specific because I use different software and recording hardware)

Typically windows included a minimal player and recorder, usually Sound Recorder. not great but it would suffice for a simple audio recording (no real manipulation).

Simple trimming can also be done with ffmpeg, though you would need to know the time stamps or cycle it a few times with copying the data to a new file.

As for format... i'll assume 44100 16bit mono is probably what you'll need. If you need it as flawless as possible, wav (and compress as zip afterwards, which may save space at no loss of quality), or flac.

I'm finding for a single voice talking 48kbps to 80kbps is more than sufficient (this is for m4a and aac, might add 64kbps for mp3 if you had to); while music i'd probably go for 160kbps to 192kbps.

That sounds like you have plenty of free time!

neumi, you mean e-mail, not regular mail, right?

teceem, your method seems like it's probably the best, or at least the simplest, without having to rely on all sorts of weird conversions and crazy methods to move the data around. I'll look into that, thanks. However, I'm not sure whether it has a 3.5" audio port, because it's not my phone, but I'll see if I can find out.

If you are able to put wav files in regular mail then by all means, try that.

If you are not concerned about losing audio quality, just recording the file will absolutely work.

some free time. But counting how many seconds you need to trim and then trying it isn't hard.

So say you need to trim 3 seconds off the beginning, then: ffmpeg -i input.wav -ss 00:03 -acodec copy out.wav

then run the new wav file and see how it sounds at the beginning, and adjust by half a second or a second. I did this for cleaning out the unwanted portions of Fools Gold (mostly ad blurbs) for my own viewing.

neumi, I think the quality would be fine, because if I understand correctly, it's just going through the audio out on the phone (which would normally go to a speaker, I guess), and from there to the audio in on the computer (which would be for a microphone), so it's sending the signal pretty directly, right? And digitally, no less, so it's not like picking up the radio using an antenna (which actually can sound pretty good), or am I wrong?

edit: What gives you that idea? If you can connect speakers, it's analog. And I still have to see a digital microphone port.
No, what you get is digital -> equilizer -> analog -(cable)-> sampler -> wave file.


The result may or may not sound good, but it will not be the original. It might still suit your neads, but if it' about music and you want to stay as close to the original as possible, re-recording it is not the way.


It depends on quite a few factors, the D/A transformators in the iPhone and the A/D sampler used in the sound card.
The iPhones audio connector is meant for small headphones, not for speaker amplifiers and definitly not to be connected to somethings microphone port. I ignore digital equilizers for the moment. Small earpieces usually have very bad bass, so the port is calibrated to counter that. On speakers or your PC the bass might be much too loud.

The sample rate might make a difference I don't know what the sample rate of the iphone output is. If you take a 16 bit file, reduce the volume by 15% on a 16 bit sound card, you get rounding errors. Therefore most modern sound cards work with 24 or 32 bit, so you can reduce volume and are still pretty close to the original. Older 16 bit cards try to compensate the errors through their capacitors which flatten the output a bit.

The small chips in an iPhone can't compete with the capacitors on more expensive soundcards anyway. People who use their computer to listen to music don't use onboard sound or USB headsets, but soundcards like certain Creative Soundblaster or Asus Phoebus models. But not even these produce a 100% accurate sounds, they also are designed for certain speaker settings and calibrated that way. Also they usually have separated headphone and speaker ports with different setups.

The microphone port is meant for microphones of course, enhancing speech frequencies and reducing noise on other frequencies to get the most clear speech. Also the impedance of microphone port is not what a audio port for headphones would expect.
If you have one, use the Line-In port instead of the microphone port, Line-In is meant to stay as close as possible to what comes in, this way the only 'error' source comes from the iPhone.

So in short, I can only repeat what I said at the beginning. The result might still be what you wanted to get, but it will not be like the original.
If you really want to get the same file, you need to transfer that file and it may prove a lot simpler than doing a re-recording, cutting it and so on. Why not give one of the named file transfer programs a try? It might prove a lot simpler than you thought it is.

The results will be more than fine enough. Voice messages kept by phone providers are already heavily compressed. High fidelity vocal recordings are not the game here.
You can't transfer the "file" if you don't have a file. This is about a "I'm not here right now, you'll have to call back (or something)" message, right?

Ps. Digital speakers and microphones exist; they have built-in DA conversion.

I know they exist but I still have to see a digital microphone one in action. For speakers - yes, but does the iPhone support that to begin with? What about his sound card on the PC?

And somehow I missed that the whole discussion was about some spoken text. Somehow I had a music wave file in mind. For spoken text it really won't matter, that's right.

Many of those "podcast microphones" are digital - they just have a USB connection.
The internal sound chip of the PC is irrelevant when using digital input/output devices. They have their own AD/DA hardware.
This is not relevant (off topic) for the OP anyway...

USB sound cards are something different entirely. I meant a digital microphone connected to a digital input of the sound card. And yes, because USB headsets come with their own sound card, I don't use them. You just can't get the same quality with such tiny amplifiers.

And of course it's off topic by now, there are plenty of solutions in the thread already.

neumi, it's analog? Oh, I thought it was digital. Well anyway, it's voice, not music. And I don't know how to get the original file, since it's not stored on the pone. It's the recording that says to leave a message for the phone. How do I get that?

teceem, yes, you understand the issue.

But anyway, what kind of cable do I need exactly? I'm not sure whether I have one or not, let alone one compatible with both Apple and PC. It would have to be one that I could stick one end in an audio in port and the other end in an audio out port I guess. Usually one end plugs in, and the other end is a device.