You can finally record videos while playing music on the iPhone

iPhone users who’ve upgraded to iOS 18 now have the option to record videos while audio is playing, as MacRumors spotted. If you’ve got music playing through the iPhone’s speaker, it’s a quick and dirty way to add a soundtrack to a video instead of bringing a clip into an editor, but audio quality does take a hit.

Previously, in older versions of iOS, opening the iPhone’s camera app and switching to video mode would cause any audio playing to quickly fade out, even if it was playing through wireless headphones. With iOS 18, there’s a new camera setting to change that behavior.

To access it, open the iPhone’s settings, navigate to the Camera section, tap on Record Sound, and then turn on the “Allow Audio Playback” toggle. With that activated, audio will continue to play when you’re recording video in the camera app, and if the audio is playing through the speaker, it will be picked up by the iPhone’s microphone and recorded in mono along with the video. If the audio is playing through headphones, it won’t be recorded.

This functionality did exist in older versions of iOS with the camera app’s QuickTake feature, which allows videos to be captured in photo mode by holding down on the shutter button, but the resulting video is limited to a 1440P resolution, instead of the 4K offered through video mode.

Using a video editing app is still the best way to add music or narration to a clip, but this update will make it much easier to record videos with dance moves or lip movements that sync to a specific song.