com.android.soundrecorder Copy

"Sound Recorder", a voice recorder that appears in the launcher on many devices. The package name comes from the Android Open Source Project: the AOSP repository packages/apps/SoundRecorder declares exactly com.android.soundrecorder, and the AOSP app is a small recorder that asks for little more than RECORD_AUDIO, INTERNET, WAKE_LOCK and external storage. The important thing about this entry is that the package name is shared, not that the app is. This site records it across 26 different makes, signed by six distinct keys with no consistent signer, with version strings that do not even share a scheme, from a bare "12" to 3.3.6.8. The vendors seen include Fairphone, OUKITEL, Xiaomi, itel, realme, Blackview, DOOGEE, Ulefone, Unihertz, motorola and rugged or purpose-built brands such as Crosscall, Datalogic, CipherLab, Newland and Elo Touch Solutions. Several of those signing keys also sign the device's framework. In other words, what is installed under this name is usually the OEM's own recorder built on, or simply named after, the AOSP one, and two devices with the same package name do not necessarily have the same app. The permission sets bear that out and are worth checking per device rather than assuming. The widest observation here declares 36 permissions, well beyond the AOSP app's, including MODIFY_PHONE_STATE, READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE, MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS and INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS_FULL, and on at least one build a set of Xiaomi and MIUI vendor permissions. Telephony-related permissions on a recorder are the sort of thing worth understanding before deployment, though this site records only what a package requests, which does not establish that call recording is implemented. Version note: the AOSP app is effectively dormant. Its last functional change on the main branch landed in July 2020, and the only later change was an OWNERS file edit in February 2025. Meanwhile this package is observed here on devices running OS API levels 27 through 36, with the builds themselves targeting API 27 to 35. So a recent build under this name is almost certainly the vendor's own code rather than a current AOSP one, and its behaviour is set by the OEM, not by Google. Nothing sourced here indicates the package was superseded, modularised or default-disabled in a particular Android release. For Android Enterprise, EMM and kiosk work, treat it as a user-facing app that happens to be preinstalled and to sit on the microphone. Where a recorder is unwanted, the app-level route in Android Management API policy is an applications entry for the package with installType BLOCKED, which Google documents as blocking the app from being installed and uninstalling it if a previous policy had installed it; confirm the result on a preinstalled system app on your own hardware rather than assuming. Where the concern is recording itself rather than this one app, microphoneAccess set to MICROPHONE_ACCESS_DISABLED is the device-wide control on a fully managed device. No safe_to_disable rating is given here on purpose: with 26 vendors behind one package name, a single verdict would be misleading, and what breaks when you remove it depends on whose build is in front of you.

• SoundRecorder AndroidManifest.xml - Android Open Source Project (packages/apps/SoundRecorder) →
• SoundRecorder commit log, main branch - Android Open Source Project →
• Policy resource (applications.installType, microphoneAccess) - Android Management API →
• Package provenance for com.android.soundrecorder - Android System App Database →

• Re-signed by each device maker with its own platform key - 6 different certificates appear across 6 device makers in our sample. That is the signature of a stock AOSP/system package every OEM builds and signs itself, not a single maker's or a third party's preinstall.
• Its largest observed manifest declares 36 permissions: 2 runtime (user-granted), 8 signature or system-level, 17 install-time and 9 vendor or uncatalogued.
• APK size ranges from 0.2 MB to 16.6 MB across the reporting device profiles, so the build differs substantially between them.
• Reported as an updated system app on 1 of 13 profiles - a newer build is installed over the one in the system image there.