Recording calls

Some teams need a record of their calls — a support line, say. Open Lounge Phone can record, but only in the open:

• Off unless you turn it on. A guardian or admin switches it on for one space: Account → Privacy in this space → Record calls.
• Never with kids. A home with a kids’ phone can’t turn it on, and a home that records can’t add a kids’ phone. A call with a kids’ phone — yours or one on another server — is never recorded.
• Always announced to everyone. When a recorded call starts, everyone on it hears “This call is recorded.” — including people on other servers, from their own app or phone. The app shows a red Recording mark, and a phone lights its recording light (its status light) and shows REC, until the call ends. If you don’t want to be recorded, hang up. There is no hidden mode.

Where the recording is made

Calls go straight between the two people; the server never hears them. So the recording is made by the recording side’s own app or browser phone, which then uploads it — like leaving a voicemail. In a room (a party line, a phone room or a 3-way call) the host’s app records it, and everyone in the room sees the mark.

Where recordings go

• In the Voicemail tab under Call recordings: the recordings of calls and rooms you were in, and for guardians and admins all of the space’s, each with Play and its transcript. Whoever made a recording, and the space’s guardians or admins, can Delete it there.
• In the buddy timeline of the people on the call (“Recorded” with a Play button), and for admins in the space’s call log (Directory → Admin → Call log).
• Transcribed only if the space transcribes voicemail.
• In your account export.
• Deleted with your call history: the space’s history setting (30 days, a year, or forever), or your own setting for that person.

Only the people on the call and the space’s guardians or admins can play a recording.

Other servers

A call from a recording space tells the other server up front, and a server can refuse recorded calls for its people: then the call doesn’t go through (or ends as soon as recording is announced), and they’re told why. Self-hosters set REFUSE_RECORDED_CALLS=1.

More: Privacy and retention.