Clubhouse rolls out Replay to let users record live rooms and share them later

Clubhouse hosts and moderators will have a fresh tool in their kit today. The company is pushing a new feature live on both its iOS and Android apps that will let creators record an audio room so that anyone who misses the action live can check it out later. The company first announced that the feature was on the way at the end of September.

With the feature, called Replay, public rooms can optionally be recorded as they happen and then saved to a club or user profile. Replays will also be downloadable so that anyone hosting a room can share it externally, beyond Clubhouse, “as a podcast, a clip on YouTube, an Instagram story, a TikTok video, or anywhere else.”

Replay’s rollout will also support pinned links, a feature that Clubhouse previously introduced to let moderators feature a relevant link at the top of a room. Anyone listening to a recorded room will also be able to skip to the next speaker, listen to it at 1.5 or 2x speed, pause and make 30-second clips of the recording.

Clubhouse creators can see who is listening to a room’s Replay after the live room ends, allowing them to connect with other users who didn’t listen to the experience in real time. Replays will pop up in Clubhouse’s existing discovery features, including search, beginning next week. The company is also introducing a “total room count” feature to give hosts more useful analytics on how many cumulative people listened to a given room.

The ability to replay audio rooms expands Clubhouse’s appeal considerably for people who don’t often catch live audio events, letting anyone use the app more like a podcast discovery engine if that’s what works for them. Creators will likely also be happy to have the option for their best content to have a chance to find a broader audience well after a live room wraps up.