3CX call recording: a practical guide to setup, storage and review

In this guide

• Where recording is switched on
• Mono versus stereo, and why it matters more than it sounds
• What the storage quota actually controls
• Getting recordings off the box
• Gap one: no recording announcement
• Gap two: recordings are stored, not read
• A short audit worth running

Where recording is switched on

Recording in 3CX is configured per extension rather than globally, with three practical positions:

• All calls - internal and external.
• External calls only - the common choice, and usually the right one. Internal calls are rarely the ones you need later, and excluding them cuts storage substantially.
• Off.

Because it is per extension, recording coverage drifts. A new starter gets set up from a template that was itself copied from somewhere, and six months later a whole team is not being recorded. It is worth auditing the actual setting across every extension rather than trusting the intent.

Mono versus stereo, and why it matters more than it sounds

3CX can record calls as a single mixed channel or as stereo with each party on a separate channel. The difference in storage is exactly two times.

The difference in what you can do with the recording afterwards is larger than that. With both parties mixed into one channel, any transcription has to guess who is speaking, and it gets it wrong at exactly the moments that matter - interruptions, overlaps, the short interjection while the other person is mid-sentence. With separate channels, speaker separation is a fact rather than an inference.

If you have any intention of reading transcripts later, or of having software read them, stereo is worth the storage. If you only ever listen to a handful of calls manually, it is not.

What the storage quota actually controls

This is the setting most people misunderstand. The binding constraint on how long your recordings survive is usually not free disk space - it is the recordings quota combined with the autodelete behaviour.

The system enforces the quota, and when it is reached the oldest recordings are removed. That produces a retention period that nobody chose deliberately: it is whatever falls out of quota divided by daily call volume.

The consequence catches people out when something changes. Switch from mono to stereo and each recording doubles in size, so at the same quota your retention period halves. A system that held sixty days of history now holds thirty, and nothing warns you - the older files simply stop being there.

Getting recordings off the box

Keeping the only copy of your recordings on the phone system is a single point of failure for something you may need in a dispute. 3CX supports uploading recordings to external storage, which lets you keep a longer archive than the PBX quota allows and survives a rebuild of the phone system.

Two practical notes from doing this in production. First, the upload does not necessarily preserve original file timestamps, so if you plan to prune the archive by age, base it on the filename rather than the file's modification time - 3CX names recordings with the call time, which is the reliable source. Second, a full archive scan is heavy: run it outside business hours, because it can collide with the platform's own database maintenance in ways that are unpleasant.

Gap one: no recording announcement

3CX V20 has no built-in feature to announce that a call is being recorded. There is no global toggle, no per-extension setting, and no notification tone. We checked this directly against the platform's own configuration rather than the documentation.

For inbound calls this is easy to work around: put the notice in your IVR greeting or the queue announcement, which happens before a person answers. That is what most businesses do.

For outbound calls there is no equivalent hook - the platform will not insert audio to the person you called at the moment they answer. The practical answer is a scripted line from the person making the call, or an announcement at trunk level if your SIP provider offers one. See call recording laws in Australia for why that gap is worth closing.

Gap two: recordings are stored, not read

The second gap is the bigger one. 3CX stores your recordings faithfully and gives you a search interface. What it does not do - what no phone system does - is tell you which recordings you should listen to.

That leaves the archive in a strange position. It is complete, it is searchable by number and date, and it is almost never opened, because opening it requires already knowing which call you want. In practice that means recordings get used for disputes and essentially nothing else. The 99% of calls where something went quietly wrong and nobody complained sit there unread.

This is the gap WiseSentry fills: it reads the transcript of every recorded call and raises only the ones where the customer was left worse off. It works with 3CX today, needs no new hardware, and does not change how anyone answers the phone - see integrations.

A short audit worth running

If you record on 3CX, these five checks take under an hour and usually turn something up:

• Is every extension that talks to customers actually set to record? Check the setting, not the policy.
• What is your real retention period - quota divided by daily volume - and does it match what you would tell a customer or a regulator?
• Is there a copy of recordings anywhere other than the phone system?
• Does your inbound greeting announce recording? Does anything announce it on outbound?
• When did anyone last open a recording for a reason other than a dispute?

The last one is usually the uncomfortable answer.

Common questions

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