Lift Recorder is out on Google Play!

Update, September 2026: Lift Recorder 1.1 adds optional sound recording, per-set tags (exercise, weight, reps and RPE) and personal records. Recording is still silent by default — the microphone stays off unless you turn sound on, and with sound on some phones pause or lower your music. The rest of this post describes the app as it launched in August. The app now has its own site at liftrecorder.app, with the current details.

For a while now, I’ve been building a small Android app on the side, and the day has come: it’s live on Google Play! It’s called Lift Recorder, and it does exactly one thing well: it films your sets at the gym without pausing your music.

Or take a look at liftrecorder.app first, if you want the full rundown.

Why recording video pauses your music on Android

If you record your lifts — for your own form checks or to send to your coach — you already know the problem. You open the camera, hit record, and Spotify goes silent mid-song. Every set turns into a little ritual of restarting your playlist.

The reason is a mechanism called audio focus. Most camera apps open the microphone when they record video, and the moment they do, they request audio focus so the mic audio comes out clean. Android hands focus over and pauses whatever you were listening to. Reasonable behavior for a video app. Very annoying between heavy sets.

Lift Recorder sidesteps the whole problem: it records video only and never opens the microphone, so Android has no reason to stop your playlist. Spotify, YouTube Music, whatever you train to — it just keeps playing.

Recording in progress, with the elapsed time counting up at the top of the screen — Seven seconds into a set — and whatever was playing is still playing.

To be honest, dropping the audio track is an easy trade. Your coach cares about your movement and your form, not gym noise. As a bonus, no copyrighted gym music ends up baked into a clip you might want to share.

What it does

The app is intentionally tiny. You open it, you record, and every clip lands straight in your normal device gallery, ready to review or send to your coach with the tools you already use.

The camera view, ready to record — The whole app: a camera, and the clips you filmed with it.

The Your clips screen, a grid of recorded clips with their durations — The whole app: a camera, and the clips you filmed with it.

You can also trim clips right in the app. Drag two handles to pick where a clip starts and ends — the preview jumps to that exact frame as you go — and save. The original stays untouched, and the trimmed cut is written to your gallery as a new clip. Trimming runs on your device too, with your music still playing.

The trim screen, with two handles marking a four second selection on the timeline — Four seconds selected out of six — the original clip stays where it is.

That’s it. No feature bloat, no workout tracker bolted on. It records your lifts and stays out of your way.

Everything stays on your phone

There is no cloud and no server ever sees your videos. Every clip is recorded and stored locally, and nothing is uploaded anywhere.

There is also no account, no sign-up, and no profile. You shouldn’t have to hand over personal data just to film a set. The full details of what is and isn’t collected are in the privacy policy.

Free, with an optional one-time upgrade

Lift Recorder is free and shows a small banner ad served by Google AdMob. If the banner bothers you, a one-time in-app purchase removes ads permanently — and once it’s active, the ads code is not even loaded.

Try it

If you film your sets and you’re tired of your camera app fighting your playlist, give it a try. It’s free, it’s tiny, and it does what it says.

If you run into a bug or have an idea that would make it better, send me a message — I’d love to hear how it holds up in your gym.