When email is the only channel you have
If you already message someone on WhatsApp or iMessage, use those — their built-in voice recorders are excellent and there's no reason to work around them.
Email is different. Plenty of people you need to reach are only ever an email address: a client, a landlord, a teacher, someone from a form on your website, a support queue, a contact you'd never exchange phone numbers with. Email has no voice button, so the usual options are typing it all out or recording a file and attaching it.
Why an attachment is the worse option
- Size limits. Gmail rejects attachments over 25 MB, and plenty of corporate mail servers cut off well below that.
- Spam filters. Audio attachments from unfamiliar senders get flagged or stripped more often than links do.
- Format roulette. An m4a from an iPhone or an Android-recorded file may not open cleanly on whatever the recipient is using.
- They have to download it.Which many people simply won't, especially on a phone.
A link avoids all four. It's a few characters of text in the body of your email, and it plays in the browser they already have open.
How to do it
- Record your message above and stop when you're done.
- Listen back — re-record if you want another go.
- Tap Upload & get link and copy the link.
- Paste it into your email with a line of context, something like “Quick voice note rather than typing it all out:” so it doesn't look like a stray link.
A note on trust
A bare URL in an email from someone the recipient doesn't know well can look like spam. Say what it is in the sentence before it, and sign off normally. If it's a first contact, a short line of written context alongside the link goes a long way.
Good reasons to send voice instead of text
- Explaining something with a lot of nuance, faster than typing it
- Tone matters — an apology, thanks, or difficult news
- Giving feedback where your emphasis carries meaning
- You're on the move and typing a long email isn't practical
Good to know
- Recordings can be up to 2 minutes.
- Links expire automatically after 30 days.
- Links are unlisted, not private — anyone you send it to can listen, and can pass it on.
- You can delete a recording yourself at any time from the player page.
- This records new audio in your browser. It doesn't accept uploads of existing files.