How to Record Radio in Macdio on iPhone, iPad and Mac

Macdio records the station you are listening to on iPhone, iPad and Mac: press the record button in the player, and press it again to stop. It saves the stream as it arrives, without re-encoding, as one long file with song markers or as one file per song, and the recordings stay inside Macdio on that device. Apple TV and Apple Watch cannot record.

For other ways to record radio, see how to record internet radio.

1. Play a station and open the full player.
2. Tap the red record button at the bottom of the player. It turns into a stop button.
3. Listen as long as you like. The mini player shows that a recording is running.
4. Tap the stop button to finish.
5. Open the “Recordings” tab to play it back.

On iPhone and iPad, the record button sits in the bar at the bottom of the full player, next to the lyrics and AirPlay buttons. VoiceOver reads it as “Start recording”, then “Stop recording”. While a recording runs, the “Recordings” tab shows a “Recording Now” section with the time so far, the size and a stop button.

On the Mac, click “Record” in the player panel, or the record button in the compact player or the menu bar player. The Recordings page then shows “Now Recording” with the time, the size, the time left before the limit, the number of songs so far and a “Stop” button.

In the car, the CarPlay Now Playing screen has a red record button too, and the recording lands in the iPhone’s “Recordings” tab (CarPlay guide).

You choose the mode in Settings:

• iPhone and iPad: Settings > Recording > “Recording Mode”, either “Continuous” or “Split by Track”.
• Mac: Settings > Recording > “Mode”, either “Continuous (One File)” or “Split by Track”.

Continuous is the default. It saves one file and keeps each song as a marker inside it, so the songs are still listed.

Split by Track starts a new file, named after the song, each time the song changes. It ignores changes that would only make clutter: a song shorter than 10 seconds, two changes within 3 seconds, a jingle with no artist on a station that normally names artists, and promo or ad markers. If the station announces the same song again with better text, Macdio renames the file instead of cutting it. On iPhone and iPad, all the files from one press of the record button show as one row.

• iPhone and iPad: Settings > Recording > “Max Duration”: “30 min”, “1 hour”, “2 hours”, “3 hours” or “6 hours”.
• Mac: Settings > Recording > “Max recording duration”, from 10 minutes up to 6 hours.

The default is 3 hours. At the limit Macdio stops and saves the recording, so a forgotten one does not run all night. The sleep timer also stops a recording when it stops the radio.

The file is as large as the stream. That is about 58 MB an hour at 128 kbps and about 144 MB an hour at 320 kbps.

• A recording needs more than 500 MB of free space to start.
• If free space drops under 100 MB, the recording stops and saves itself.
• On iPhone and iPad, Macdio warns you every 5 minutes while free space is under 500 MB.
• On the Mac, Settings > Recording shows “Disk space available”.

iPhone and iPad also notify you when a recording finishes or stops, and every 30 minutes while one runs.

• iPhone: the “Recordings” tab. It is under More unless you choose it in Settings > Appearance > “Tab Bar”.
• iPad: the “Recordings” tab.
• Mac: “Recordings” in the bar at the top of the main window, with a “Station:” filter.

The audio lives in Macdio’s own storage on that device, and recordings do not sync between devices. On iPhone each row shows the station, the date and time, a “Split” or “Continuous” badge, the length and the size. Tap the track count to see the songs, and tap one to play from there. A recording plays song by song; turn on “Play as One Track” in Settings > Recording to hear a whole show from start to finish.

To delete a recording on iPhone, swipe it left, tap “Delete” and confirm “Delete Recording?”. The audio file and every song found in it go together. On the Mac, use the delete button on the recording card and confirm with “Delete Permanently”.

The song names in a recording come from what the player shows: the station’s own titles, and Song ID matches on stations that send none (see Song ID and Auto Shazam). Because of that, stop the recording before you switch to another station. Covers come from what played during the session and from Apple’s iTunes catalog. In Split by Track, a file that closes without a song name is identified with Song ID afterwards.

Tags inside the file depend on the station’s format. Recordings from stations that stream AAC are saved as M4A files with the title, artist, album and cover written into the file; when the album is unknown, the station name is used. MP3, Ogg, FLAC and other formats carry no tags inside the file, and their song names live in Macdio’s list.

A recording without any song names shows a “Find Songs” button on iPhone and iPad. Macdio then runs Song ID at points 20 seconds apart through the file and lists the songs it recognizes. Songs shorter than about half a minute can be missed. If the scan fails, the button changes to “Retry”. The Mac Recordings page has no Find Songs button.

• Macdio offers no export. There is no share, export or Files option, and recordings are meant for personal listening inside the app.
• There is no scheduled recording. You start every recording yourself.
• Apple TV, Apple Watch and podcast episodes cannot be recorded.
• Recording uses its own connection to the station and reconnects up to five times if the stream drops.
• If a stream cannot be saved at all, Macdio discards the empty file and tells you the stream may not support recording.

No. Recordings stay inside Macdio on the device that made them, for personal listening. Macdio has no share, export or Files option for them.

Yes. Choose “Split by Track” in the recording settings and Macdio starts a new file, named after the song, each time the song title changes.

Up to 6 hours. The default limit is 3 hours, and a recording stops and saves itself when it reaches the limit you set.

As much as the stream, because Macdio saves it as it arrives: about 58 MB an hour at 128 kbps and about 144 MB an hour at 320 kbps.

No. There is no scheduled or timed recording. You start each recording yourself, and the maximum duration or the sleep timer can end it.

No. Each recording stays on the device that made it.

Get Macdio on the App Store, play a station and press record. The recording page has more. One purchase, every Apple device, no subscription.