Windows 11 Sound Recorder brings back features that were removed years ago

The Windows Sound Recorder application has gone through several iterations since its original release in Windows 3.0 back in 1990, when it was launched as a simple application that could only record 60 seconds of sound at a time. But the app has completely disappeared in Windows 10, replaced by a brand new app called Voice Recorder that can record and trim basic audio recordings and save them as m4a files.

Now Sound Recorder is back and Microsoft is currently testing an updated version for Windows Insiders on the Dev channel. The company announced the redesign in a blog post that summarizes Windows 11 updates for native Windows apps.

The new voice recorder uses a two-column layout similar to the voice recorder, with playback and trim controls on the right, and a list of all recorded files on the left. But it adds some old sound recording features that disappeared from the application a few years ago, when it was almost gone in Windows Vista.

The app has a waveform visualizer that appears during recording and playback, and you can once again save or open files in multiple formats (including m4a by default, as well as mp3, wma, FLAC, and WAV). The new voice recorder can also adjust the audio playback speed from 0.25x to 4x and set markers so you can easily move from place to place in a large audio recording.

This isn’t the first time Windows 11 has revived the name of an old Windows app while retaining the user interface and features of the newer app from the Windows 10 era. The new Windows Media Player has much more in common with the Groove Music app than Windows 7 Media Player, and the tool The Snipping Tool in Windows 11 is a renamed version of what was called Snip & Sketch in Windows 10.

Windows 11 has also updated a lot of built-in Windows apps that haven’t received much attention since Windows 7 or even earlier, including Paint and Notepad.