Anonycord records video while the screen stays black. There is no live preview, no visible camera interface, and no bright display giving it away. You tap to start and stop, and recordings go to the photo library, a private Face ID vault, or both.
It is useful anywhere a lit-up camera screen gets in the way. This is primarily for journalists, but can also be used generally for filming in a dark room without the glow, lectures and talks, candid and street footage, personal documentation, and hands-free or eyes-free recording where you can't look at the screen. This is a fork of c22dev/Anonycord with an expanded feature set.
- Features
- Installation
- Building from Source
- Releases and CI
- Settings Reference
- The Vault
- Reduce White Point Shortcut (Covert purposes)
- Notes and Caveats
- Roadmap
- Credits
- License
- No-preview recording. The screen stays black while filming. The whole screen acts as the start/stop control, so you never need to find a button.
- Video, audio, and stills. 4K or 1080p video on wide, selfie, or ultrawide cameras, audio-only recording with adjustable sample rate and channels, and photo capture.
- Haptic feedback. One pulse when recording starts, two when it stops, so you get confirmation without looking.
- Hardware trigger. Start recording with a volume button instead of a tap. The system volume overlay is suppressed while active.
- Auto-start. Begin recording a set number of seconds after launch, with no interaction.
- Blackout mode. A fully blank screen with no status bar, home indicator, or controls. Tap anywhere to start and stop, press and hold to reach settings. Brightness drops to the floor while active and restores when you leave.
- Flexible save destinations. Send recordings to the photo library, a private in-app vault, or both.
- Private vault. Recordings kept inside the app sandbox, hidden from Photos and Files, opened with Face ID.
- Album sorting. Library saves can be grouped into a dedicated Anonycord album automatically.
You install the unsigned IPA with a sideloading tool such as AltStore, Sidestore, Sideloady, or TrollStore.
- Download
Anonycord.ipafrom the Assets of this release. - Open or import it in your sideloading tool, which signs the app with your own account.
- Install to your device.
Camera, microphone, photo library, and Face ID permissions are requested on first use. iOS 15 or later.
Building it yourself from main, or pulling the IPA from a CI run instead of a release, is covered in Building from Source and Releases and CI below.
Open Anonycord.xcodeproj in Xcode and run on a physical device. The simulator cannot use the camera, volume buttons, or Face ID. The project uses synchronized folder groups, so new source files are compiled automatically without editing the project file.
Minimum deployment target is iOS 15.
The build is handled by .github/workflows/build.yml on a macOS runner. It pins a recent Xcode, produces an unsigned archive, packages it into an IPA, and uploads it. Signing is intentionally left out, your sideloading tool signs the app on device.
| Trigger | Result |
|---|---|
Push to main |
Builds an unsigned IPA and uploads it as a workflow artifact |
Push a tag matching v* |
Builds the IPA and attaches it to a GitHub release |
| Manual run | Same as a push, triggered from the Actions tab |
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Video quality | 4K or 1080p |
| Camera | Wide, Selfie, or UltraWide |
| Sample rate / channels | Audio recording format |
| Haptic feedback | Pulse on start and stop |
| Volume button trigger | Start recording with a volume button |
| Auto-start | Begin recording after launch |
| Blackout | Fully blank screen, tap to record, hold for settings |
| Save destination | Library, Vault, or Both |
| Album sorting | Group library saves into an Anonycord album |
| Show recording info | Display current parameters on the main screen |
| Crash upon saving | Quits the app after a save (inherited from the original) |
The save destination setting controls where recordings end up:
- Library saves to Photos, and to the Anonycord album when sorting is on. Clips appear in Recents like any normal recording.
- Vault keeps recordings inside the app's own storage, hidden from Photos and the Files app. The viewer is gated behind Face ID, and nothing leaves the device.
- Both writes a normal copy to Photos and keeps a private copy in the vault.
The vault lives in the app sandbox. Recordings stored there are removed if the app is deleted or a reinstall goes wrong, so choose Both if you want a copy that survives that.
An app cannot toggle Reduce White Point on its own, but the Shortcuts app can. Build a shortcut with three actions in order:
- Set White Point, On
- Set Brightness, 0%
- Open App, Anonycord
Place it on the home screen or the Action Button. A single tap reduces the white point, floors the brightness, and opens the app ready to record. Adjust the dimming amount once under Settings, Accessibility, Display and Text Size.
- Tested on iOS 26 with a minimum target of iOS 15.
- The volume button trigger relies on undocumented behaviour. Test the exact start and stop sequence you intend to use before depending on it.
- Face ID requires the
NSFaceIDUsageDescriptionkey, which is set in the project build settings. Without it, opening the vault would crash. - Blackout floors the system brightness and restores it when you leave blackout or background the app, so the device is never left dark.
Original app by c22dev. Forked and extended by Jack Ghafari.
Licensed under GPL-3.0. See LICENSE.