If you need to capture what’s happening on your iPhone 13’s screen on the go, don’t take a screenshot—make a video recording of the screen. Luckily, your iPhone 13 (regular, Mini, Pro, or Pro Max) makes things easy with the Control Center shortcut. Here’s how to use it.
What is Screen Recording?
Think of screen recording as a moving screenshot: it records everything you normally see on the screen directly to a file. But instead of a still image, it’s a video stored in your photo library. Screen recordings are great for spotting bugs or bugs in action, creating tutorial videos, and more. Keep in mind that while you are mirroring your iPhone screen to another screen, you cannot make a screen recording. Otherwise, everything on the screen is removed, including notifications.
First, enable the Screen Recording button.
To record a screen on iPhone 13, you will need to use the dedicated Screen Recording button in Control Center, which is disabled by default. (As a reminder, the Control Center is the shortcut bar that appears when you swipe down from the top right corner of the screen.)
To enable the screen recording button, first open the Settings app.
Under Settings, tap Control Center at the top.
In Control Center settings, swipe down and tap Screen Recording (with a plus symbol next to it). This will move it from the “Other Controls” list to the “Included Controls” list and appear in the Control Center.
You can change the order of the shortcut buttons in the Control Center by touching and dragging items in the Enabled Controls list. When finished, exit Settings. Now it’s time to record the screen.
How to Record Screen on iPhone 13
Now that you’ve added the Screen Recording button to the Control Center (covered in the section above), you can record your screen at any time. To do this, first open the Control Center by swiping down with one finger from the top right corner of your iPhone screen.
In the control center, the screen recording button (a circle within another circle) will be located at the bottom of the panel, along with other shortcuts (such as a flashlight or a calculator).
If you want to record the screen without sound, tap the Screen Record button once. However, if you want to record audio from your iPhone’s microphone while recording your screen, press and hold the Screen Recording button.
If you pressed the button once, continue to the next step. But if you press and hold the Screen Recording button, you will see a special pop-up menu. To enable microphone recording, touch the microphone icon until it turns red and underneath it says “Microphone on”. Then click “Start Recording”.
After three seconds, the iPhone will start recording all screen activity (as well as microphone sound, if you’ve enabled this option). You will notice that both the screen recording icon in the control center and the clock in the top left corner of the screen turn red when your iPhone is recording.
Once the screen recording is complete, tap the red clock in the top left corner of the screen and select “Stop” from the drop-down menu.
Alternatively, you can stop screen recording by opening the Control Center and clicking the Screen Recording button again. When it changes from red to white, you will know that the recording has stopped.
After that, you will see a pop-up notification that informs you that the screen recording you just took has been saved to your photo library.