3 free apps for screen-recording on your Android smartphone

You'll be familiar with the standard phone screenshot – a simple and effective way to capture what you're looking at that you can refer back to at any point.

But why would you want to record your phone's screen in video format?

Here at Journalism.co.uk, journalists and mobile journalism trainers have told us that this ability is useful when demonstrating a workflow for using specific mobile apps, and producing creative footage for external use. So, next time you need to text someone a list of instructions, you can send a screencast for them to follow instead. It's quick and can be accessed anytime.

AZ Screen Recorder

This app has no time limits, watermarks or ads.

Once downloaded, the AZ Screen Recorder icon will appear on your home screen. When you tap it, the app will place an overlay on your screen with a moveable menu bar.

The gear-shaped icon will take you to a menu to adjust video quality depending on your needs post-production, such as setting video resolution, bit-rate and screen orientation.

When you're ready, locate the screen you want to record, whether that's in another app or on the home screen, and tap the camera shutter icon to start. At this point, you'll see the overlay disappear and a countdown timer run up to the recording.

Note that if you'd like to use this app to livestream your workflow, tap the 'live' icon and connect to Facebook, Twitch or YouTube.

Screenshots inside AZ Screen Recorder

The app will continue to record until you stop it by dragging the pull-down menu down from the top of the screen and tapping the stop icon. We like the feature that enables users to pause and resume the recording at any point, also found on the pull-down menu – useful to cut down editing time in post-production.

AZ Screen Recorder also enables you to draw on the recording if you make a donation towards the funding of the app.

Once you're happy with your recording, open the gallery via the main menu and share your video to your camera roll or externally before exiting.

ADV Screen Recorder

ADV Screen Recorder also lets you pause recordings as you create your screencast, and start and stop screen recordings at the touch of a button. But this app lets you use the back or front camera while recording, and draw on your footage using the notification bar that pops up as you work.

This means you won't need to edit the foootage in another app. ADV Screen Recorder will pick up your voice, so why not describe what your doing while you're doing it?

Screenshots inside ADV Screen Recorder

When you're ready to start recording, click the overlay icon to launch the app, and tap the video camera icon to start.

Stop the recording by using the notification bar, before choosing to trim, delete or share your footage.

DU Recorder

This app lets you edit the footage after you've finished, trimming it, removing sections, adding text and images, and even music.

Get started by opening DU Recorder to see a faint orange symbol at the bottom of your screen.

When you're ready to record, tap this icon to open the menu bar, where you will be able to either start recording, access a library of your recorded content or change the settings for your screencast.

When you're ready to go, tap the red record button to start, and again to stop.

Screenshots inside DU Recorder

We like that this app lets you record your fingerprint, so that viewers of your video can easily see when you are tapping on the screen.

You can also link this app to platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, enabling you to livestream your workflow – a useful tool for mobile trainers.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).