cally

cally is a call recorder for stock Android that captures both sides of a call using a dual-track VOICE_UPLINK and VOICE_DOWNLINK approach with a five-step fallback ladder, and a Material 3 Expressive interface. It is privacy-first: zero telemetry, with optional cloud transcription that supports self-hosted endpoints.

The app exists because ordinary call recorders on stock Pixel devices cannot record the other party's voice: Google blocked VOICE_CALL, UPLINK, and DOWNLINK for non-privileged apps starting from Android 10. The native call recording that Google rolled out in the Phone app is unavailable in many regions, including Ukraine, and region switching does not help because the gate is combined (SIM/MCC, Wi-Fi BSSID, GPS, IP). Existing workarounds have significant trade-offs, such as root with loss of Verified Boot and Play Integrity, closed binaries, or mono mixes with volume imbalance.

Features

Call recording

- Dual-track recording with VOICE_UPLINK and VOICE_DOWNLINK in parallel (two mono tracks, ideal for playback with independent balance) - Five-step fallback ladder: DualUplinkDownlink, DualMicDownlink (Samsung-friendly), SingleVoiceCallStereo, SingleVoiceCallMono, SingleMic - Live-audibility verification with adaptive noise floor per stream, and three strikes before blacklisting a strategy - Preferred strategy cached per device fingerprint; OS updates invalidate the cache automatically - Automatic downgrade of a silent track at call end - Encoder: AAC in MP4 by default, with optional WAV (RIFF) - Recordings written to the app's private storage under Android/data/dev.lyo.callrec/files/recordings/ - No announcements, no beep (see Legal notes)

Interface

- Material 3 Expressive UI built with Jetpack Compose - Material You dynamic colors - Home, library, and playback screens with waveform view (planned) - Ongoing recording notification with public visibility

Privacy and security

- No Firebase, Crashlytics, Sentry, analytics, or telemetry of any kind - Audio recording never touches the network - INTERNET permission is used only for optional cloud transcription; no network requests are made until the user enters an API key - User-configurable transcription endpoint, compatible with OpenAI chat-completions API with input_audio content parts (self-hosted options available) - Caller verification on every AIDL call via UID and release-certificate SHA-256 pinning - adb-backup and cloud-restore disabled - Cleartext traffic blocked via network security configuration

Legal notes

Ukraine is a one-party consent jurisdiction. Recording your own phone conversations as a participant, for personal use, is legal and does not require a disclosure beep.

Users outside Ukraine should check their local law. Jurisdictions fall into three consent levels:

- Level 1 (one-party consent): the participant may record without notifying the other party. Includes Ukraine, the United States (federal level and about 38 states), the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Poland, and most of Latin America. - Level 2 (all-party with implied consent): notifying the other party at the start of the call is sufficient, as continued participation implies consent. Includes about 11 US states (California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, Connecticut) and commercial contexts in parts of the EU. - Level 3 (explicit consent required): a simple warning is not enough; explicit informed consent is required, in some cases in writing. Includes Germany, Austria, Belgium, and some strict privacy jurisdictions.

cally cannot play a beep or voice announcement into the other party's ear, because that is a platform-privileged operation. For Level 1 jurisdictions, no beep is required. For Level 2, a spoken warning at the start of the call works as implied consent. For Level 3, cally does not meet the requirement technically, and no in-app workaround exists; explicit consent must be obtained separately.

This is a general overview, not legal advice. For critical situations, consult a lawyer.

Requirements

- Android 12 (API 31) or higher. - Pixel 6+ (Tensor) or another modern Android device with a compatible audio HAL. - Shizuku installed and running (the community build by thedjchi/Shizuku is recommended for its auto-restart watchdog and persistent ADB pairing).

Setup

- Activate Shizuku via Wireless Debugging: Settings > Developer Options > Wireless Debugging > On, then in the Shizuku app choose "Pair via Wireless Debugging". - Grant Shizuku permission to cally on first launch. - Make a test call: recording starts on OFFHOOK and writes the tracks to the app's private recordings folder.

Interface language:

- Ukrainian

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later